Friends & Fables
Friends & Fables is a browser-based tabletop RPG in which an AI Game Master named Franz narrates and referees D&D 5e-inspired campaigns. Play solo or with up to six friends, and build your own worlds.
What is Friends & Fables?
Friends & Fables calls itself the world's first generative tabletop roleplaying game (GTTRPG), and the label describes the product accurately: it keeps the shape of a D&D-style campaign and hands the game master's chair to an AI. Everything runs in a browser, on desktop, tablet or phone.
Three pieces sit behind that promise. The first is Franz, the AI Game Master, who narrates scenes, voices the non-player characters, arbitrates the rules and remembers what happened many sessions ago. The second is a world-building suite covering maps, locations, NPCs, monsters, items, spells, classes, races and free-form lore that the engine reads back into play. The third is a virtual tabletop with battlemaps, tokens and movement for turn-based tactical combat. The rules are inspired by the D&D 5.1 SRD, licensed under CC BY 4.0; the site states twice that it has no affiliation with Wizards of the Coast.
The technical argument is worth understanding, because it is what separates this from a chat window. Rather than keeping the campaign as unstructured prose, Friends & Fables stores the game state in a database — statistics, coordinates, locations, quests — and both the players and the AI modify it. The publisher presents this as the reason the engine drifts less than ChatGPT or AI Dungeon and can actually enforce a rules constraint. Under the hood, several specialised models collaborate instead of a single general one: Gemini, Llama, GPT, Grok and fine-tuned in-house models, with a next-generation engine named ACE-1 (Agentic Campaign Engine) announced on the blog.
Campaigns run solo or with up to six players, in real time or asynchronously, with long-term memory, a travel system, per-campaign context and instructions, text-to-speech and generated imagery. The world-building tools are free and ad-free, and creations can be exported off the platform.
The publisher is Side Quest Labs, a two-person indie studio run by Will Liu and David Melnychuk; the project started in March 2023 as a Discord bot called Franz. The homepage claims more than 100,000 players and world builders. The service is openly labelled early access beta, with bugs and breaking changes expected.
What it does
- Play a 5e-inspired campaign narrated by an AI Game Master, solo or with up to six players
- Build a complete world: maps, locations, NPCs, monsters, items, spells and lore
- Generate images of characters, places and items, and top-down battle maps
- Run turn-based tactical combat on battlemaps
- Write branching quests and one-shots
- Explore and play worlds published by other players
- Listen to the narration in text-to-speech, with distinct character voices
When to use Friends & Fables / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Friends & Fables is the right fit.
When to use Friends & Fables
- Roleplayers who have no regular group and no game master available, and who want a campaign they can start on their own
- Friends scattered across distances and schedules: play is asynchronous as well as real-time, so the campaign keeps moving without a shared time slot
- World builders who want to create maps, locations, NPCs, monsters, items, spells and lore, then publish and share their universe
- Newcomers put off by learning the rules: the engine tracks statistics, notes and inventory on their behalf
- Solo players, who are catered for on the same footing as multiplayer tables
When not to use Friends & Fables
- Anyone under 18: the terms of service restrict the platform to adults (section 4)
- Writers looking for free-form fiction with no rules, since the engine is deliberately constrained by 5e mechanics
- Users who want to plug in their own API key or run the game themselves: the help centre answers no, the architecture is cloud-based and the language models are interdependent
- Anyone who needs their sessions kept out of model training: section 11.2 of the terms grants that right without exception, including on a private account
- Regulated professional use: no DPA, no subprocessor list and no published certification, with hosting and audience both declared in the United States
How to use Friends & Fables
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Start at fables.gg, the showcase site; the game itself runs at play.fables.gg
- Try the five free generators on /tools — character sheets, spells, monsters, items and locations — which work without a paid account and without ads
- Create an account at play.fables.gg/login with a display name, e-mail, avatar and password, or sign in through a third-party account: most features require one
- Pick a starting point: explore the worlds published by the community on /worlds, or build your own in the workshop at play.fables.gg/workshop
- Save your creations inside the game, or export them for use at a physical table
- Start a campaign solo, or invite friends up to the player limit of your tier: guests play free, only the host pays
- Play in real time or asynchronously, and keep in mind that a turn is a message sent by Franz, not a message you send
- Install the game on a phone with Share > Add to Home Screen on iOS or Install App on Android: it is a PWA, not a store application
- Subscribe through Stripe with major debit and credit cards, and cancel from the account management page or by e-mail to support@fables.gg
- Use the help centre at help.fables.gg (7 collections, 63 articles), Discord for quick answers, and feedback.fables.gg for the roadmap and changelog
Pros & Cons
Pros
- The game state is stored as structured data rather than free text, which the publisher explains and illustrates as the reason the engine stays more consistent than a plain chat model
- Three layers in one place: AI game master, world-building suite and virtual tabletop
- The free plan is permanent rather than a trial: up to 25 turns per day, unlimited campaign slots and access to every public world
- Guests play free of charge, so only the host pays for a table of up to six
- Asynchronous play lets a campaign advance without everyone being available at the same time, and solo play is fully supported
- World-building tools are free, ad-free and exportable off the platform, alongside 63 help articles and a public roadmap and changelog
- Unusual transparency about the models used and the four cases in which staff may read messages, plus generous refunds and two months free on annual billing
Cons
- The publisher openly labels the service early access beta, with bugs, incomplete features and game-breaking changes announced
- There is no way to exclude your sessions from model training, and the terms grant that right even on a private account
- The licence granted on user content is irrevocable and sublicensable down a chain
- No GDPR framework at all: no legal basis, no described rights, no DPO and no EU representative, and no DPA, subprocessor list or published certification
- The paid entry point is high for a game at USD 19.95 per month
- No native application (PWA only, and the app announced for 2025 has not shipped), no public API, no personal API key and no local execution
- A two-person studio limits the support surface and release pace, no interface language other than English is announced, and purchased credits are non-refundable and reclaimed if a subscription is refunded
Pricing & Plans
Friends & Fables operates on a freemium model. A permanent free plan is available at no cost and includes up to 25 turns per day, long-term memories, unlimited campaigns, access to public and featured worlds, 3-player campaigns, 1 mention per message and 4,000 characters of custom blocks. Paid subscriptions start at USD 19.95 per month with Starter (unlimited standard turns, text-to-speech, 4 players, 2 mentions, 6,500 characters, 100 bonus credits per month), continue with Pro at USD 29.95 per month (5 players, 3 mentions, 9,000 characters, 300 bonus credits per month) and Legend at USD 39.95 per month (6 players, 5 mentions, 13,500 characters, 600 bonus credits per month). Annual billing includes two months free, equivalent to USD 16.63, 24.96 and 33.29 per month respectively. Every tier except the free plan includes unlimited standard turns, cancellation is possible at any time, and a subscriber's friends play at no cost. Credits are an internal currency for premium narration and Image Studio; they can be purchased in packs, granted as a monthly bonus or earned in play, and they carry no monetary value, cannot be exchanged, are non-refundable and are lost if the account is deleted. Monthly subscribers may request a refund of a full month, annual subscribers have 30 days, credit purchases are not refundable, and bonus credits are reclaimed in the event of a refund. Payments are processed by Stripe in United States dollars.
- Free — USD 0 per month
- Starter — USD 19.95 per month (USD 16.63 per month on annual billing)
- Pro — USD 29.95 per month (USD 24.96 per month on annual billing)
- flagged Popular
- Legend — USD 39.95 per month (USD 33.29 per month on annual billing)
- flagged Recommended and Premium
- Credit packs — sold separately
- amounts not published on the showcase site
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Friends & Fables handles your data.
GDPR overview
The GDPR is never named: not in the privacy policy (effective 5 March 2024), not in the terms of service (5 December 2025), and not in the help centre. No legal basis for processing is stated, and no right of access, rectification or erasure is described. No data protection officer is designated and no EU representative under Article 27 is named. The privacy policy states instead that the services are hosted in the United States and intended for visitors located within the United States; a European user is told that data is transferred outside the EU and consents by using the service. The only controls actually offered are updating a profile, closing an account and unsubscribing from promotional e-mail. A section addresses California residents (terms 21.8), with no EU equivalent. Data is not knowingly collected from children under 13, which is separate from the contractual minimum age of 18.
Who owns the data?
You keep the copyright and other proprietary rights in the User Content you post, but section 11.1 of the terms of service (effective 5 December 2025) makes that ownership subject to the licence granted in 11.2. That licence is worldwide, non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free and sublicensable down a chain, and it allows Side Quest Labs to use your content and to share it with other users. An account can be set to private to prevent that sharing, public listing is opt-in, and display name and avatar remain visible in all cases. Section 16.3 warns that you may lose access rights to your content when your account is terminated, and asks you to keep your own copies.
Reuse rights
At sign-up the publisher collects a display name, an e-mail address, an avatar and a password, or the equivalent through a third-party login. It also collects automatically the IP address (used for approximate location), browser, operating system, mobile carrier, advertising identifiers and push notification tokens, receives and processes messages exchanged between players, and can access the address book with permission. Declared purposes are broad: providing and improving the service, personalisation, analytics, communication, marketing and advertising, fraud prevention and push notifications. Third-party advertising partners are involved and opt-out is delegated to the NAI and DAA industry pages rather than an in-product setting. Section 11.2 of the terms grants the right to use user content, inputs and data derived from them to train algorithms and models, "regardless of whether your account is private", and no opt-out is documented. Data may also be aggregated with other users' data. Payments are handled by Stripe, not by the publisher. A help article sets out the internal rule on message access: campaigns are private by default and the team reads messages only for a bug report accompanied by an event ID, for anomalies and errors, for aggregate statistics, and to review recently disapproved messages.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
The privacy policy, effective 5 March 2024, states that the services are hosted in the United States and intended for visitors located within the United States. Transfer outside the European Union is announced explicitly and is deemed consented to by use of the service. The publisher also reserves the right to transfer data from the United States to other countries or regions for storage, processing and operation of the service. No region, no data centre and no data residency option is named. Technical observation is only indicative: the resolved IP address, 216.150.1.1, geolocates to the United States on AS16509 Amazon.com Inc., but the node may be anycast; name servers are operated by Cloudflare. A help article states that data is encrypted with AES-256 at rest and with TLS in transit, with no end-to-end encryption. Neither a data processing agreement nor a list of subprocessors is published.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Friends & Fables.
- The terms of service grant the right to train models on user content regardless of whether your account is private, and no opt-out mechanism exists
- The licence you grant on your content is irrevocable and sublicensable down a chain
- The AI game master can produce adult or explicit content, and access is restricted to users aged 18 and over
- The service is in early access beta, with bugs and game-breaking changes announced by the publisher
- Access to the content you created can be lost when an account is terminated, and an expired payment method entitles the publisher to delete the account and its content (terms section 6); keeping your own copies is advised
- Purchased credits are non-refundable, and bonus credits are reclaimed if a subscription is refunded
- The terms impose individual arbitration with a jury and class action waiver, unless you opt out in writing by postal mail within 30 days, and cap liability at the greater of twelve months of payments or USD 100
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Very low. Nothing is installed: the game runs in a browser on desktop, tablet or phone. An account is required, created with an e-mail address and a password or through a third-party login. No technical skill is expected, no API key has to be supplied and no model settings configured, since the engine applies the rules for the player. Removing friction is the publisher's argument: no rules to learn, no game master to find, no shared time slot. Optional PWA installation on a phone takes two taps. Depth comes from world building, which costs time rather than technical skill.
Deployment
Behind Friends & Fables
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Alternatives
Tools that compete with or complement Friends & Fables.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly counts as a turn?
Do my friends need a subscription to play with me?
Which AI models run the game?
Can I use my own API key or host the game myself?
Are my campaigns private?
Is my content used to train the models?
Is there a mobile app?
How does it relate to Dungeons & Dragons?
What are credits for?
Can I get a refund?
Should you pick Friends & Fables?
Friends & Fables is a real, active and well-documented product rather than a demo: a busy blog, a public changelog and 63 help articles back it up. Its positioning is clear, tabletop roleplaying made accessible rather than a chatbot for creative writing, and its central technical claim, a game state held as structured data instead of loose text, is explained and illustrated rather than merely asserted. That is what allows Franz to remember, to count and to enforce a rule, and it is the main reason to prefer it to a general-purpose chat model.
It earns the detour for players with no group or no available game master, for friends spread across distances who want a campaign to advance without a shared slot, for solo players, and for world builders looking for somewhere to create, publish and share.
The conditions deserve to be stated plainly. At USD 19.95 per month the paid entry point is expensive for a game, but the free plan is permanent rather than a trial, so the product can be tested without a deadline and guests never pay. The reservations are legal rather than technical: the terms grant the publisher the right to train its models on user content regardless of whether the account is private, with no documented opt-out, the licence on that content is irrevocable and sublicensable, and no GDPR framework is published, with no legal basis, no described rights and no EU representative. The service is also openly labelled early access beta, with breaking changes announced by the publisher itself.
Side Quest Labs is a two-person studio, unusually transparent about its limits, the models it uses and the cases in which it reads messages. Come for the game, and read the terms before you build a world you care about.
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