The combat system has a tactical side to it. Predicting the enemy's next move and making use of different offensive and defensive skills is crucial. However, the game features an automatic combat mode if the player wishes to choose this option. Enemies have different ranks and come in all sorts of species, some of them being very large in size. The player can see the strength of the enemy before attacking it by pressing the Alt key. Some monsters are aggressive and will attack and pursuit on sight. This also sharply reduces the number of bots because of the high artificial intelligence (AI) of monsters.

Dying implies a loss of experience points (depending on whether the player respawns in a town or on the same spot the death occurred) and sometimes the loss of equipment (these lost items can be retrieved at a lost and found NPC, but at a cost, usually, half of the item's actual price). Fallen players can be revived if another player uses a Phoenix Feather on them. If the player has purchased the Nao Support package, then Nao can be summoned to revive the player. If the player has zero experience points and suffers a death penalty, negative experience points will accumulate and the experience bar will turn red on the Character panel.

Fantasy Life
There is a wide range of Life skills mabinogi gold give the player the chance to experience a different side of the "fantasy life". Players can perform tasks such as tending to the wheat and potato fields, making flour, gathering wool from sheep and eggs from hens, weaving and making garments, mining for minerals and crafting weapons, playing and composing music, cooking dishes, etc. 

Using a system called Music Markup Language (actually a variation of Music Macro Language, players may compose their own arrangements or use music scrolls created by other players. Different musical instruments, such as lutes and flutes, can be used to play these compositions in-game. Naturally, there are legal implications of playing copyrighted music, and while Nexon officially discourages such actions, there are many players who choose to do so.

NPC interaction is very important in the game. As the player talks to different non-player characters, keywords will become available to use in dialog with other NPC's. These conversations will reveal plot points and NPC backgrounds, unlock quests or skills, etc. NPC's also offer a variety of services such as shops, item repair and upgrade, skill apprenticeships and more. Players can also request arbeits from some of the NPC's, which can be useful to get items or quickly earn some gold (the in-game currency). By interacting frequently with the NPC's, they will be able to remember the player's character.

Players can set up stores to sell their items. Incidentally, items cannot be looted, as it frequently  mabinogi gold in other games, since any item dropped from a monster cannot, as a rule, be picked up by another player for a short time. Items can be safely traded through the trading panels.

Generation 3, in later updates, added housing areas between Tir Chonaill and Dunbarton and also between Bangor and Emain Macha. Through this housing system, players can bid for a house and pay rent for it afterwards, in order to keep it. Houses may be used as stores and players can purchase items to decorate their homes. 

As in many other MMORPG's, player characters can get married in-game, by requesting this to a marriage NPC. A pet system is also available. Players may purchase Pet Cards from the game store and summon them in-game. Pets can help in combat or, in some cases, even be used as transportation, allowing the player to travel at  mabinogi gold speed than on foot.

Other features worth mentioning are the friend, party and guild systems. Guild creation requires the purchase of an extended play package from the game store. Guilds can expand/level up by meeting an increasing quota of points (called Guild Points, or GP), which are earned by the guild's members by staying in-game. PvP combat is also possible in special arenas.