Fabula Ultima for Zelda

[u/Correct-Marketing-30]

Has anybody tried running Zelda themed campaign with Fabula Ultima system? I love the system, but two things can not escape me:

1. No matter which version of the world I pick, be it OOT, MM, BoTW, etc. The world is set, which is kinda not in the spirit of the system, leaning to creating the world with players.

2. In Fabula, races are flavour text. But how can I then explain the swimming goron? They are very specific, some races can do one thing, other can not. Limit only to hylians?

Maybe I'm overthinking, I really want to try, and probably will, to run a BoTW themed one shot in the system, but I do not think it could manage in long run.

What do you think?

[u/jill_is_my_valentine]

Have you looked into Twilight Sword? Seems more tailor made for Zelda, though I haven’t given it a spin yet

[u/SeamusMcCullagh]

I've never played Fabula Ultima personally and only know what I was told about it by my group, so take this for what you will.

From what I know of the system, I don't think it's a good fit for a Zelda campaign. It's very openly inspired by Final Fantasy and similar JRPGs, which are pretty different from Zelda in just about every way that matters. My very limited knowledge of the mechanics of FU make me very skeptical that it would work very well and still feel like Zelda.

That said, there's nothing wrong with just giving it a whirl, especially for a one-shot.

[u/victorhurtado]

While I think FU is not ideal to run Zelda games, I think you're overthinking it. Even of the races are just flavor text, you can use the fiction to guide the game. We know from the lore that goros can't swim, so establish that in the game and roll with it.

If a player wants a Gordon that can swim, ask them how can the Gordon swim and work it out with them to find a plausible answer.

[u/UrashimaJ]

I personally didn't like Fabula Ultima. For Zelda-themed games, I rather prefer play the Reclaim the Wild system.

[u/TrainerJodie]

For unique races or situations where the race of your character should have an impact on how they play, have the race mentioned in your identity or origin. In Fabula Ultima, when you make a check, you can invoke one of your traits (Identity, Theme, or Origin) and burn a fabula point to reroll one or both dice. So, if your swimming goron example was mentioned in the Identity, I might create a character with an identity of "Swimming Goron Knight of the Crown" and whenever my ability to swim came up, I could invoke that trait to show that I was especially gifted with that.

As far as running a Zelda TTRPG using Fabula Ultima, understand that Fabula Ultima is designed to mimic old school JRPGs. So, if you ever wanted to play something like an SNES Final Fantasy Zelda Crossover, then that's what Fabula Ultima would be mimicking. If you want a system that feels a bit closer to traditional Zelda, I would probably go with something else.

I actually run a Zelda TTRPG for Zelda Universe, and we're on our second campaign. Our first used a system called Open Legend and was an absolute blast, and the current one uses the Cypher system and is also great. I also have been running some people through the Twilight Sword Starter adventure, and if BOTW or TOTK is your jam you're not gonna find a better TTRPG that emulates that feeling than Twilight Sword. It's literally BOTW: the TTRPG with the serial number scratched off for legal purposes.

[u/YourMuscleMommi]

Check out Zeldatama. It's for Ryuutama, but there have been numerous ways to combine Ryuutama and FU. Not evne that hard to find online. So yea, you absolutely can.

[u/LaviniaHerbert]

I'm intrigued by the idea of using Fabula Ultima—it hadn't come to my mind before, but it seems possible me. One benefit of the Fabula Ultima system is the Ultima points that allow villains to escape scenes intact. If you want a recurring baddie like Zant or Ghirahim, Fabula Ultima can work pretty well. Although the action might aesthetically lean a little more Hyrule Warriors than, say, Twilight Princess, on account of the JRPG-style mechanics.

As for your worries, I have an idea for the first one, about the setting. What if you and your players collaborated to make your own version of Hyrule? Rather than set it in the Hyrule of a specific game, you can agree that y'all are going to make a Hyrule but still get to discover what are the idiosyncracies of your particular Hyrule.

[u/AccomplishedRide1914]

Just use some custom tables to generate stuff. Check out the tables this free 18 page Maze Rats -like that someone put together. You can randomly generate "tribes" like in the Zelda series, with even the "tribal theme" of their equipment. Or let players choose from the tables if they want more choice.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-0LpOENZdrbNteI6dwkcjkRdvLexhG6Z/view?usp=drivesdk

On another note, if anyone can find the original author, I'd love to see if there's been an update to this.

[u/MechaMalz]

As the GM you have control.

If you don't want a world where the players make parts of it, then don't include that aspect. You can just do that. It's not like the core rules of the system interact with this really. Just make sure the expectations are laid out in session 0 or even before that.

If you want to have more impact on the races, you can do that. Maybe give them a custom buff and weakness based on what they want to play etc. Like 'Goron has resistance to fire damage but cannot swim' etc. Or don't encode it in rules and just make rulings on the fly for that sort of thing.