The main appeal of Fable is the setting and the tongue in cheek (black) humour. The original game’s world is mostly inspired by fairy tales (the darker versions) but also has lots of silly things. The world has a Hero’s Guild, which trains everyone that has the ability to do magic etc, and through which normal people can hire heroes to do quests. Heroes can be good or bad and this is reflected in your appearance (e.g. a halo or devil horns). It also changes based on your combat focus, with melee turning you into The Rock and magic making you look like Saruman.

The second game is set hundreds of years later after the heroes have mostly died out and is very Dickensian. I don’t think the setting fits the concept quite as well as the original’s, but gameplay is much sleeker, you gain a dog companion, and Stephen Fry’s in it.

The third game is similar to the second, but attempts to be more epic and cinematic.