In a departure from delving into the Judge Child supplement that we mentioned last week, it's time to look at something completely ace and fresh from EN Publishing. Practice your cheesiest one liners and prepare for some pulpy fun as we take a look at the Awfully Cheerful Engine. Or ACE! for short.
As the cover image states, ACE! is a roleplaying game of action comedy. Designed for fast-paced sessions that focus on your Hero's exploits and witty quips, the system behind this energetic RPG is light and extremely versatile. Using a d6 dice pool system, tasks are achieved by beating a difficulty number set by the GM. Simply roll the number of dice in your relevant Stat and try to beat the Target Number. If you have a Focus in a certain skill or ability, add two dice to the pool and then roll. It's a simple as that. Not quite picturing it? Let's take a look at the character sheet, which is just as straightforward as the system.
As you can hopefully see from this, if Bertram needed to climb a tree, he'd grab two dice for his Brawn stat and add two dice for his Climbing focus, giving him a dice pool of four. It even says so on the character sheet, see?
Character creation is just as light and flexible, with options ranging across fantasy, modern and sci-fi genres. It's almost as if ACE! is designed as a complete streamlining of certain other EN Publishing books... Hmmmm. Other nuances of the system include Karma, which you can use to buy EVEN MORE DICE for rolls amongst other things, and traits, which allow you to gain Karma back by playing to your Hero's quirks.
Designed to be published in a light and accessible comic book format, each supplement in the ACE! line will arrive in an extra-slim 32-page format. This even includes the core rulebook for the system, which will be our very first issue when ACE! launches
We won't just be offering a core rulebook and leaving you to it, however. Oh no! We already have our second and third installments ready, so you'll be able to launch straight into the action. First up will be a reworking of the Spirits of Manhattan adventure that is also available for the W.O.I.N. ruleset. Streamlined and condensed to match the ACE! philosophy, Spirits keeps all of the action but loses none of the flavour. Hot on the heels of Issue #2 will be... Issue #3! Which we're also giving the title of Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark.Spotting a pattern here? We told you there'd be puns involved!
So when can you expect this fun-filled system to land? We will be looking to launch ACE! in the first quarter of 2021, so a little way off yet. In the meantime, you can keep yourself updated by checking in on the website for ACE!, which will give you an even better insight into the concept we believe we have captured with this awfully cheerful RPG installment. We'll be back next week with our first look at the Judge Child supplement for Judge Dredd & the Worlds of 2000 AD.
