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Reputation
February 10, 2026 at 05:35 AM
Full reputation system article based on Ralph Fulton interviews and Developer Direct
Earlier Fable games had a morality slider. Do good things and your character grows a halo. Do bad things and you sprout devil horns. That system is gone.
Ralph Fulton, the game director, was direct about this: "Our version of morality isn't a sliding scale." The new system is local and subjective. Different towns see you differently based on what happened there.
Your reputation is built from your actions, but only the ones that were witnessed. If nobody sees you do something, it does not affect your reputation. If you steal from a shop in Bowerstone but nobody catches you, the people of Bowerstone are none the wiser.
Every NPC has their own worldview. They judge your actions through their own lens. What one NPC considers noble, another might see differently. Fulton described this as "entirely subjective" and "probably representative of how morality exists in the world that we live in today."
Your actions generate reputation tags. These are labels that follow you around:
Kick chickens in front of people and you become "Chicken Chaser"
Buy up property and you get tagged as "rich" or "tycoon"
Perform heroic deeds and people call you a hero
These tags are local. Your reputation in Bowerstone can be completely different from your reputation in Bloodstone.
The old games changed your character's appearance based on morality. Evil characters grew horns and went bald. Good characters got a halo. This feature has been removed.
This decision has split fans. Some miss the visual feedback. Playground Games made the call because they do not believe in a binary view of morality and did not want the game telling players they are objectively good or evil.
Choices have permanent effects on the world. The most cited example: killing Dave the giant leaves his corpse in the landscape. House prices in that area permanently drop. NPCs reference it. It does not go away.
The game tracks these consequences across regions. Whose opinion matters to you is part of the roleplaying. You decide which towns you care about and which ones you are willing to burn your reputation in.
Fable 2 and 3 had a dog companion that followed you everywhere. The dog is not in this game. Playground Games has not ruled it out for the future, but it is not in the Autumn 2026 release.
