7/25/2023 - Memory Improvements: The Notebook 📖
Hey everyone,
The memory improvements are here! In this release, we're introducing a feature called the Notebook. It's a permanent knowledge bank that is shared by you and Franz. Franz will automatically write to it and remember things indefinitely, and you can use it to give Franz extra context about anything.
For example, I can create a note about an NPC named Finn, who owes me a quiver of arrows. The cool thing is even though I’ve made him up and he has not appeared in the game yet, Franz will know that Finn owes me those arrows. We think this is going to be a super powerful feature and we’re excited to see how you all use it.
How it works
To learn more about the Notebook take a skim through the guide. The important parts are summarized below:
- Franz will automatically create & update notes when events related to the note occur.
- You can create your own custom notes about anything you'd like Franz to know about!
- Due to the limited context Franz can use in a command, each note is currently limited to 1024 characters. This means notes automatically updated can gradually lose the finer details that occurred earlier in the campaign.
- If you don't want Franz to automatically update and potentially overwrite your note, you can 'lock' the note by clicking on the lock icon of the note. Notes are referenced by Franz when the name of the note is mentioned in your message or the last few messages of the game. This is case insensitive and will work even if you make a small typo, though for best results try to mention the note by it's full name when you can.
Current Limitations
Sometimes Franz can take note of things that might not seem important or give a subpar update to a note. We'll be working on gradually tweaking and improving his automatic note taking over time.
What's Next
- This week we'll be catching up on some smaller issues in the backlog & addressing any feedback related to the Notebook.
- Around next week we'll be working on adding support for items & inventory tracking so that you can actually pick up and use the items you come across.
Thanks again for your support everyone, let us know what you think of the update and what else you'd like to see!
7/11/2023 - Prompt Updates & Backend Infrastructure 🏗️
We've made a lot of updates to the prompts we use to get Franz's messages. You should be seeing the following improvements:
- More creative storytelling
- More accurate quest opportunities. We had seen misfires of the Accept Quest button, but it should be mostly fixed now.
- When you have quests off, Franz is much better at handling downtime / freeroam. You can freely wander the city, talk to NPCs, or go home and do your laundry without him trying to push you back into a questy storyline.
We'd love to hear from you if the game feels better. We're always working on improving the quality of the prompts, so if you see anything weird please let us know!
To enable these better prompts, we had to re-do some of our backend infrastructure which allows us much more fine grained control over the prompts. This should make it easier to make improvements in the future.
We've been talking about it for awhile, but we're actively developing our memory system now! We're excited to get this out to you, but it's going to take some time as it's one of the most complex things we've tackled. We'll keep you updated as we make progress.
7/7/2023 - New Featured Worlds 🌎
A quick update while we're working on longer term features like improved memory: New Featured Worlds are Here! The previous featured worlds were a little too similar, so we refreshed some of the existing ones and added new experimental worlds with some different themes.
Currently there isn't premade characters for these worlds yet, so we highly recommend making your own custom character that fits the theme of the world. Let us know whether you love them or hate 'em. This is a bit experimental and based on the feedback will let us know if we should focus more on adding support for traditional DnD 5e rules and settings, or instead place some focus on allowing more home brew elements & customization.
7/5/2023 - Bug Fixes & GPT 3.5 Turbo 0613
- Increased randomness! We have increased temperature, which means the model will be more random in its output. This should make games more interesting! Please let us know if you notice a difference.
- Open AI released a new version of GPT 3.5 Turbo (0613). We’ve noticed increased descriptiveness and more cohesion. The new model behaves slightly differently so we had to spend some time reworking prompts to make everything feel right. If you run into anything weird please let us know!
- Updated Warlock spell casting modifier to use CHA
- Fixed bug where !tac and !talk were not working properly
6/23/2023 - Combat Revamp ⚔️
The combat revamp is here! One of the big problems with Franz has been that he couldn't reliably do arithmetic or keep track of the state of an encounter. We've fixed that in this update.
Old System
Previously we were trying to use clever prompts and relying on the LLM to do the arithmetic and to manage the state of the encounter. LLMs are bad at this and it's what caused Franz's frequent combat mistakes.
New System
Roll for Initiative
All encounters start when you roll for initiative. When you roll for initiative, the encounter is generated and saved based on the most recent context. E.g if you just entered a cave that's home to a dragon and then you enter combat, your encounter will include that dragon as the enemy.
During the encounter, Franz will simulate the turns for any NPCs until it's time for a player to act. Players can decide to either attack or to run away from the encounter.
Attacking
To attack, use /roll attack [type] [describe]
to roll for your attack. Make sure in your description to specify which enemies you would like to target.
If your attack successfully hits, your damage die will be automatically rolled and applied to the enemy's HP.
Fleeing
If the encounter is too difficult or you simply wish to run away, use /talk-To-Franz
and tell him that you'd like to run away. A message will pop up that will let you confirm your decision to flee from the encounter.
Important
- Currently only rolling for attack or fleeing will move the encounter forward. Any talks or spell casts will not affect the state of the encounter.
What's Next 🔮
-
We're happy to have this new combat system in place as it serves as a reliable foundation to build upon. In future updates we'll be adding things like earning XP after killing an enemy, acquiring loot after an encounter, and improving the uniqueness of actions NPCs can take.
-
For this next week, we're going to be polishing up some of the existing features like Quests and the Featured worlds, and then we'll start working on longer term memory improvements to improve Franz's overall coherence & recall as your game progresses.
5/26/2023 - New Quest System, Updatable Worlds, Site Refresh 🎉
Holy shit we're excited to get this one out to you! We think this is one of the biggest improvements that we've been able to deliver to the game play.
Quests
In the old system, Franz always kept a quest in memory, which is why the game could feel restrictive at times. He would railroad you towards the quest. Well we've got good news! This new system should feel much more natural, and you should feel a greater sense of freedom. As things happen around you, quests connected to those events will appear. You can accept, negotiate, get more information, or explain why you aren't the right person for the job. If you don't want to do quests at all, you can turn the quest mode off and just go about your business.
Quest Modes
Quest modes are how we steer Franz. Try to make sure your quest mode matches your actions in the game, otherwise you may get some unintended results! For example, if you are "On Quest" but you decide you want to go do something completely different, Franz will keep pushing you back to the quest. If you want to go do something else, you should end your quest first.
There are 3 quest modes:
Looking for Quests
Franz is instructed to create a quest for you based on whatever is going on in the game. Sometimes it can take 3-10 messages before a quest appears, Franz will try to slowly lead you in. If you want to jump right into a quest, you can speed it up by jumping to the point a quest would begin - "I go to the King's chambers and ask him to grant me a quest".
On Quest
In this mode, we store the quest in Franz's memory. He'll use this as a north star to keep things on track for your quest.
Quests Off
With no quests, you are in a free roam mode. Do whatever you like! You will not see official new quests appear. Franz may sound like he's leading you into a quest or he might mention something about quests still, but no official quests are created.
How do I change my quest mode?
You have two ways of changing your quest modes.
-
Run
/quest
and select the mode you want to be in. You cannot use this command to switch to "On Quest". You must find a quest first. However, you can use this command to end a quest that you are already on. -
Click the buttons when a quest opportunity arrises.
Custom Quests / Influencing Franz
If you want to go on a particular type of quest, you can just tell Franz exactly what kind of quest you want to go on. "Franz, I want to do a hiest". Or, you can do it in-character as seen below:
Worlds
We refreshed the design of the worlds tab, but more importantly you can now update the world as you play. This way, you can add new details or update locations as you play.
Improvements
- New landing page refresh! Check out and share https://www.fables.gg/
- General improvements to the AI
Where we’re headed next 🚀
We'll be taking a short break from big features to focus on some of the smaller things that have been piling up, as well as some marketing efforts. We're almost at 1,000 people in the server, and we're excited to see how much we can grow this community! If you're reading this, please help us out by sharing your experience on reddit, twitter, or wherever you hang out.
5/23/2023 - Add Franz to your server, channels are out, threads are in!
Add Franz to your server
We've had a number of requests to be able to add Franz to other servers, and that feature is finally here! We're excited for you to bring Franz to your friends.
You can add Franz to your server by finding him in the channel list and clicking "Add to Server".
Or by clicking here.
When you add Franz into your server, you'll be able to play just like you have been in the F&F server. There's a one time setup command to run after you add him which will create a Friends & Fables Category, a new-game channel, and a games-channel that hosts all of your games.
Channels are out, threads are in!
Instead of creating new games as channels, we are now creating them as threads. This has a few advantages:
- It's much cleaner, threads don't clog up the side bar the same way channels do.
- We can use the forum channel type, which provides a much nicer UI to find your game.
- The limit for threads is much higher, so we don't have to clear out channels all the time.
- Threads will automatically archive after 7 days. If your thread is archived, you can simply send a new message to unarchive it and keep playing.
Where we’re headed next
Quest revamp is almost here 👀. You'll be able to turn quests off, request custom quests, and the entire flow of going on quests has been completely re-done.
5/20/2023 - Premade Characters
Quick update inbetween some of the bigger features. We've added premade characters to help you get games started faster. These characters were put together fairly quickly, but we'll come back to improve their backstories and artwork soon!
5/18/2023 - Leveling, Spells, Rests, and Custom Summaries
Thanks everyone for continuing to show your support as we build! We are close to 800 people in the server now. We've grown another ~300 since our last release, and a lot of that is thanks to word of mouth. We appreciate you sharing F&F with your friends!
Features
Leveling
Leveling is finally here! We want to make sure you are rewarded for putting all that work into your quest. This update gets us one step closer to feeling like a real RPG with progression and character advancements.
How do I level up?
You will now gain XP when you finish quests. Currently, the amount of XP received per completed quest scales depending on your level. The plan is to adjust the XP based on quest difficulty in the future. If you abandon a quest, you may receive partial XP depending on how much of the quest you have completed.
Will I gain XP for winning encounters?
At the moment, no. But we are planning to put this in when we re-work the combat system.
How do I check how much XP I need to level up?
You'll see the XP you earned whenever you complete a quest and can also view your XP at any time on your character sheet via /game-info my-character
Spells
Our goal is to make this experience as close to D&D 5e as possible. Spells are an important part of this, and are quite a challenge to implement due to their complexity and the Discord UI being limiting for a feature like this.
The current iteration is that you can learn and prepare spells through your character sheet, and then cast them using the /spell-cast
command. The spells you know and your spell slot usage are automatically tracked for you.
Learning/Preparing Spells
You can set up your spells in your character sheet. A spell book will load with all available spells for your level and class. Click the learn/prepare buttons to move those spells into your "Active Spells" list. These are the spells that will be available when you use the /spell-cast
command.
Casting Spells
Run /spell-cast
to cast a spell. This will bring up a drop down menu of all your available spells. Select the spell you wish to cast and Franz will apply its effects.
Good Things to know
- If you are in combat, you should first run
/spell-cast
. If your spell requires you a roll to hit, then you would use/roll [attack] [spell]
. If you don't run/spell-cast
, we can't keep track of your spell usage. - Discord limits us to 25 items in a drop down menu, so this is the maximum amount of "Active Spells" we can show. If you are playing a character that should have more than 25 active spells, we recommend going back to your character sheet to shuffle spells around as needed.
- When you level up, you can come back to your character sheet to add new spells if they are available.
Short / Long Rests
You can now take rests to recover your HP and spell slots. Use /rest short rest
to take a short rest to roll your hit die and recover some hp or /rest long rest
to take a long rest to recover all your HP and spell slots.
Customizeable Summaries
You can now update the summary (Franz's memory) of your game. This is useful if our summarization flow missed something important, or if you want to make sure he has a key piece of information from a long time ago.
Improvements
- Character Sheets were rebuilt and improved.
- Updated /help menu
- Fixed a bug where you weren't able to create custom worlds
- Fixed other smaller bugs & made tweaks to Franz messages. Thank you to everyone who reported bugs and gave feedback!
5/1/2023 - HP Tracking, Death, System Messages, and more!
We are officially past 500 in our Discord. Thank you all so much for playing. Excited to share the new release notes with all of you!
Features
HP Tracking ❤️
We think this one of the biggest improvements we’ve made to the F&F experience so far! Before, combat was sort of pointless, and your HP didn’t really matter because Franz started with your full HP each encounter. Now, your HP is tracked as you play, which brings us to…
Death 💀
You can die now! This means there are now real consequences to your actions. You’ll have to play carefully and manage your HP.
Hit Dice ❤️🩹
Use /roll hit-dice
to roll your hit dice and recover HP. Currently you have unlimited uses, but we'll be adding usage tracking & short/long rest mechanics in the future.
System Messages 💻
You may have gotten some inaccurate responses before when asking questions such as “How do I start a new quest?” or “Can I see my character sheet?”. This is because Franz doesn’t always keep that information in memory. Now, you’ll get a system message to help you handle new quests and your character sheet!
Mid-game character sheet updates 🧙
You can now manually update your character sheet mid game. Just /talk and ask franz “Can I update my character sheet?”, or run /game-info and click “View on fables.gg”
See what Franz remembers 📜
Use the /show-summary
command to see the current summary and what Franz remembers about your game!
Improvements
- Improved quest hooks ~ You should now get more detail when you start a quest
- Combat improvements ~ Combat will still not be completely accurate, but it should be better than before.
- Better channel naming for new games
- Added basic ability scores to
/roll skillcheck
Where we’re headed next
- Adding inventory and spell tracking
- Allowing you to add Franz to your own server!
- Further improving combat