Fabletop is Dead, Or Maybe It Never Truly Lived

Let’s be honest: Fabletop had a brief golden age; if you can even call it that, with around 20 to 30 regular players. The current state of the site is the result of deeper, systemic issues. Now, just five users occasionally log in, seemingly hoping to revive it. Good luck with that, I guess.

What’s frustrating is that many of the problems keeping players away could be resolved with just 1-2 hours of coding from the site’s creator. But nothing has been done. A perfect example: we haven’t had a password recovery option for over eight years, despite the issue being acknowledged and multiple users emailing in requests for a fix.

So, what has happened since then? A new moderator was appointed, pointlessly, since there are only about 10 active users at most. That same moderator hasn’t logged in since 2019.

I genuinely loved the site, even though I disliked the core system. The battlemats are simple and elegant, and the text flow is great. But you're forced to stick to a rigid system unless you jump through hoops and write multiple forum posts to request minor changes. This is especially ridiculous considering the most popular tables often featured extensive custom mechanics. Fantasy Tales by Trotrigar is a great example of that.

At this point, Fabletop has become little more than a chatroom for 3-5 people who log in daily to talk about life. Meanwhile, those trying to make a difference ignore the platform’s deeper issues and instead insist, “Fabletop is perfect, people just don’t see it.”

If you're reading this, the post will probably be deleted soon anyway taken down by yet another moderator obsessed with enforcing a “rainbows and unicorns only” policy. No criticism allowed. It’s the same mindset that led to the banning of GMs who actually brought the most new players to the site.

Hi - first of all thank you so much for sharing your opinion which is valued :)

You can name names with this 'moderator', I am not obsessed with a 'rainbows and unicorns only' policy, I just made it clear that another forum had a specific purpose and removed your post for being off-topic. I then let you know right away what I had done and why - I'm sorry to see you've taken it personally.

Whilst I value your opinion, I also disagree with it. There was not really a 'golden age'. What there has been are 12 years I've been on this site, and only the past 1 or 2 of them have had a problem with lack of games -/ players. Even then, people have continued to run games and have fun. If you haven't been having fun, that's cool - everyone likes different things :) But yeah, the 'golden age' is more like '10+ years of the site being fairly active'. Sure it was never more than 20-30 people, but this was always enough for people to have fun.

I agree that the password issue should be resolved and that having Frost active to help us might help speed up efforts to improve efficiency. However, what I object to most about your opinion if your stance of 'everything is doomed and we should do nothing to try and fix it' I think that's a silly outlook, both for Fabletop and for life.

On that note, you're objectively wrong that the 'only' thing that's happened in the last 8 years is one new moderator. In that time there have been multiple expansions of minis and changes in the coding to move scenes server-side instead of being stored in the easily deleted browser cache. I agree with you that it would be fantastic to have some more active admin on the site - but I find it hard to be annoyed at someone who created the site, pays to keep the server running and works a full-time job for not being at our beck and call.

At the moment, the site may be more of a chat room for the same few people - but those same few people are also having fun socialising and playing each other's games. This gives us a solid base to try and grow the site and attract more players. I apologise once again that trying to do something about a problem is so abhorrent to you.

Anyway, I genuinely wish you all the best both with real life, and if you continue to use the site, with Fabletop. I hope you find loads of fun games to play and have loads of people join yours.

Yours, replying on a more appropriate forum thread.
Oman,

"It’s the same mindset that led to the banning of GMs who actually brought the most new players to the site." - I'm pretty sure that GMs desiring more custom/crunchier mechanics weren't banned for expressing those desires. It's more likely they were banned for violating this site's code of conduct.

Yeah, no one has ever been banned for hosting games with additional rules or homegrown systems, only for genuine violations of the sites terms of service.