What is ACE-1?

ACE-1 (Agentic Campaign Engine) is a completely new architecture for the system that powers Franz. We’ll publish more information about the specifics later.

Thank you for helping us with alpha testing! Your feedback and play time is instrumental in helping us improve our systems. We really appreciate you!

How do I turn ACE-1 on?

During alpha testing on release.fables.gg, your campaigns will automatically be created with ACE-1. Make sure you are creating a NEW CAMPAIGN - do not use old campaigns in alpha, they will likely be broken.

You’ll know that ACE-1 is on when you see (ACE) next to Franz’s name.

What should I expect from ACE-1?

Initially, ACE-1 will not feel much different. In fact, it might feel worse in some ways as not all features are complete (encounters don’t work yet, for example). Storytelling and pacing will likely feel different though.

Most of our work up until has been building the foundation. This new foundation gives us a new level of steerability and control, and as you provide feedback we will be able to change things much faster. Your feedback is more important than ever!

By the time we get into production, we expect to see the following from ACE-1

Better storytelling - more cohesive and natural. Should feel much closer to a human GM
Better context management features
Better use of context
Be able to access/update more information on every entity (character sheets, items, etc)
More accurate game state updates and generations (moving locations, HP updates, etc)

What Features are working with ACE-1?

🔴 - Not working

🟡 - Working, but not in its final form yet

🟢 - Finished

Feature	Status	Notes
Encounter System	🔴
Quest System	🔴
Location Generation	🟡
NPC Generation	🟡	Now generates NPCs with items.
Item Generation	🟡
Spell Generation	🔴
Class / Race Generation	🟢
Interactions	🔴
Memories	🟡
Custom Instructions	🟡
Trope Avoidance	🟡
Improve NPC name selection	🟡
Mentions	🟡
Character Relationships / Discovery	🟡	NPCs you haven’t met yet will know that you have not met / will not use your name right away
Rewrites	🔴
Franz Game State Management	🟡	Franz should be able to update everything when you tell him to
Languages	🟡

Feedback Requirements

As an alpha tester, you will be required to provide feedback on every message that Franz sends. We will lift this requirement later, but we need this data in order to help improve the system.

How can I be helpful? What should I be paying attention to?

11/12 - For now, the biggest things are testing the new features below and giving us feedback on storytelling / pacing / generations. Did Franz give you a skill check at the right time? Did he move your location when he should have? How is the storytelling feeling now? Does he feel smarter or dumber?

What’s new?

Storytelling and Pacing

Right now, storytelling and pacing should feel different but we’re not quite sure it is better yet. However, we’ve built a lot of foundation that will help us steer the storytelling in all of the directions you tell us about in your feedback.

Mentions

Similar to discord or slack, you can now @ any entity within the campaign to specifically mention it and ensure its details are pulled into context for that message.

Text Enrichment

With ACE-1 we can now also enrich all the text that’s generated from Franz, so you can hover over and gather information above them. For now, this opens up character sheets and views of locations, but may be enhanced with more features in the future.

Suggested Actions

If you’re unsure of what do next or want some inspiration, click on the light bulb in the chat to get some quick suggested actions.

New NPCs are now generated with starting equipment

When discovering a new NPC, they’ll now be generated with some starting equipped weapons, armor, and a couple items of gear in their inventory.

Viewing Context

You can now view the context sent to Franz on a message. Read more about it here: https://discord.com/channels/1087479995083018372/1309270336641962045

NPC Relationships

NPCs should no longer immediately know your name and you can develop positive and negative relationships with them that get tracked: https://discord.com/channels/1087479995083018372/1309312000878182503

Item & Location Update Accuracy improved

Franz should now more accurately update your items, currency, and location. Item and currency updates are also now tracked for NPCs.