Meddling Mysteries

It could be the seventies. It could be the eighties. It could be nineties. It could be now. Whatever the decade, the world is in danger and refuses to believe it. Creatures of the night stalk the darkness and only you have the knowledge and bravery to face their danger head on. So ready your UV torch, sharpen your stakes, bless your holy water, and load up the mystery wagon, because tonight you are going monster hunting! Are you ready to save the world and have nobody notice? Then that makes you a vampire hunter—fearless or otherwise! This is the simple set-up to Bite Me!, a scenario and mini-supplement for ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—the roleplaying game of fast, cinematic, action comedy, published by EN Publishing, best known for the W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying System, as used in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition. Some of the entries in the series have been expansive, such as Orcs & Oubliettes and Strange Science, providing a detailed setting and an scenario, whilst others in the series have tended to be one-shot, film night specials. Bite Me! falls into the latter category.

As with other supplements for ACE!, both the genre and inspiration for Bite Me! are obvious. However, there is a twist. The genre involves vampires and vampire-hunting, so the obvious inspiration is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is not though, the only inspiration for Bite Me! and the other adds very tongue (or is that fang?)-in-cheek tone to the whole affair. That inspiration is the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series, Scooby-Doo. So, this injects an extra dose of cheesiness into the play of the Awfully Cheerful Engine!. The bulk of Bite Me! is dedicated to a single adventure, ‘Darkness, BITES!’ and to that end, it provides four pre-generated Player Characters. However, it also gives the means for the players to create their own characters. These include suggested Roles such as talking Animals, Clerics, Druids, Slayers, Vampires, and Werewolves. To these are added the new Roles of Fortune Teller and Paranormal Investigator. The Fortune Teller gains the Power stat and can cast magic, but to begin with, does not know any spells. The Role also grants a bonus when using a tarot deck and knows if spirits are harmful. The Paranormal Investigator begins play never having encountered the supernatural, but has unveiled a lot of hoaxes. The Role gains a bonus when looking for clues and interacting with the authorities, and starts play with the Mystery Wagon, a mid-sized van.

In addition, various items of equipment are listed as being of use. These include garlic, holy symbol, tarot deck, EMF meter, pure salt, and more. In addition, there are stats for various things that the Player Characters might encounter, such as devil, mummy, poltergeist, and wolfman. The most amusing of these are the Crooked Property Developer (all together now, “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!”) and the Pirate Ghost.

The four pre-generated Player Characters consist of Fluffy Winters, reluctant vampire slayer; Lilo Thornberg, witty fortune teller; Rooby Roo, faithful dog; and Ted Bones, cheery paranormal investigator. All of whom are very knowingly tongue-in-cheek in being drawn from their sources.

The adventure, ‘Darkness, BITES!’ begins with news reports of strange occurrences at a rundown amusement park. It could be ghosts or it could be something else! In fact, it is both, because the adventure really leans into both of its inspirations. So, if the players are expecting there to be a Crooked Property Developer, they will not be disappointed, and if they are expecting ghosts, they will not be disappointed either. That though, is not the end of the scenario. The Crooked Property Developer is hiding something and that tips the Player Characters into a much darker storyline, which will see them race around town to find signs of occult and even vampiric activity—helped by a local psychic and chased by another classic monster—before finally tracking the evil down and confronting it in its lair. Not so much Transylvania, as Transylvania USA! The scenario is nicely detailed and plotted out and easy to run. It is not set in a specific city, so can be set anywhere the Game Master decides. It just needs to be big enough to have an abandoned amusement park. The play of it should take two sessions or so to play through.

Physically, Bite Me! is well presented with reasonable artwork. It needs a slight edit in places.

Bite Me! is very light in terms of its treatment of its inspirations—but then it has to be. The aim is to make those inspirations easy to grasp by Game Master and player alike and enable the players to engage with them as little or as much as they would like. Which is all part of making the main focus of Bite Me!, the adventure ‘Darkness, BITES!’, just as easy and as quick to prepare. Bite Me! should provide the Game Master and her players with a session or two’s worth fang-tastic and snacka-licious fun. All they have to is provide the snacks.

—oOo—

EN Publishing will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

Inside the Thunder Dome

In the not-too-distant future, 2020, civilisation is no more. It was wiped away by the falling of bombs, by the plagues that ran rampant, by raging starvation, and the desperate, resulting scramble to survive. This was the Boom. It took place years, probably decades ago. What remains is the Waste, where communities cling together for support and protection, as well as access to supplies of clean food and water, hoping with to withstand the predations of marauders, cannibals, and worse. One such community is Paradise City and in recent months, its inhabitants have suffered an outbreak of the plague known as Bleeding Fever. Fortunately, Paradise City’s leaders managed to obtain a cure from the Science Council of Heartbeat City. Unfortunately, the truck carrying the antidote was captured by the Saint, a local warlord who notoriously runs fights in her ‘domes of thunder’, or rather in electrified cages. Many communities send fighters to participate in these fights, but not Paradise City. Until now, that is… In order to get the antidote its citizens need, Paradise City is sending a fighter for the first time, backed up with a team, to the Saint’s next tournament, called ‘Lectric Buggalu’. However, the team is not there just to support the fighter, because if he does not win and cannot get the antidote back, the team is going to have to steal it and drive it all the way back to Paradise City.

This is the set-up for Domes of Thunder, a scenario and mini-supplement for ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—the roleplaying game of fast, cinematic, action comedy. Published by EN Publishing, best known for the W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying System, as used in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition. Some of the entries in the series have been expansive, such as Orcs & Oubliettes and Strange Science, providing a detailed setting and an scenario, whilst others in the series have tended to be one-shot, film night specials. As with other supplements for ACE!, both the genre and inspiration for Domes of Thunder are obvious. The genre is Post Apocalyptic and the inspiration is the Mad Max series of films, specifically, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. This is a setting where guns and bullets are scare, petrol (or gasoline) is precious, and leather and scrap armour along with a pink mohawk are the only thing seen as fashionable since before the Boom. The book provides some basic background and some rules additions before leaping into the scenario itself, which makes up two thirds of the supplement.

Domes of Thunder starts by suggesting some old Roles suitable for setting, as well as giving some new ones. The old include the Barbarian, Bounty Hunter, Cowboy, Outlaw, and more, and these are joined by the Cyborg, Driver, Gladiator, Mechanic, Mutant, and Survivalist. Each has a simple benefit, such as the Cyborg being able to do a Brawling attack and inflict double damage by spending a point of Karma, the Driver gains the Driving Focus for free in addition to his other Foci, and the Mechanic can spend Karma to scrounge enough metal and plastics and parts to restore the Health of any vehicle. Since this is a cinematic setting, it adheres to the ‘Rule of Cool’ when it comes to personal armour. If it looks cool, it provides personal protection. Vehicles in Domes of Thunder—automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, and armoured RVs—have all been scavenged, patched, and repaired again and again, and players need to roll at the beginning of every Act to see if their characters’ vehicles have enough fuel. A vehicle is defined by four stats—Health, Bash, Steering, and Plating. Health is the amount of damage a vehicle it can take, Bash how much it can deal out when ramming or sideswiping another vehicle, Steering is its manoeuvrability, and Plating how much damage it stops. A handful of vehicles are given stats, but the game does not really need any more than that.

One of the things that Domes of Thunder makes clear is that it is not a setting in which speed matters. In fact, none of the vehicle have a speed rating. There are two reasons for this. One narrative, one physical. The physical is that the roads are strangely still maintained, but being marked by cracks and potholes, it is impossible to go too fast. The narrative is that all the interesting things happen when vehicles get close to each other, rather than one racing away simply because it is faster. It is possible to get away from another vehicle in a chase and catch up with another vehicle in a chase, but in Domes of Thunder, what determines this is the narrative and manoeuvring rolls. This is about as far as the driving rules and driving duel rules go in Domes of Thunder, essentially keeping them simple and fast.

The ‘Domes of Thunder’ adventure begins in the post-apocalyptic equivalent of the tavern in fantasy roleplaying—an old rest stop, now barricaded and fortified. The Player Characters are hired by the fighter from Paradise City and his manager to provide support and back-up on their journey to Saint’s Compound and help in getting the antidote out if things go wrong. And since, Domes of Thunder is effectively a one-shot, film night special, things are definitely going to go wrong. This starts with the Paradise City fighter being challenged by a rival fighter and ultimately ending up dead the next morning. Which also makes things more complex as one of the Player Characters will have to enter the ‘dome of thunder’ as the fighter representing Paradise City. There are other complications, but they are just bumps in the road. The main action takes place at Saint’s Compound, which turns out to be more like ‘Santa’s Compound’ if it was protected by armed ORCs and Elves. This is because it used to be a shopping mall and it was the mall’s Christmas Santa who fortified the mall not long after the Boom.

Apart from the Player Character who is going to fight in the dome, the other Player Characters are going to have to sneak around and investigate Saint’s Compound in search of the truck with the antidote for Bleeding Fever, try not to get caught—but hey, it is definitely more dramatic if they do as they have to escape the Saint’s (prison) workshop and then have to escape her compound too, and eventually race out of there in the truck with the antidote. It is fairly freeform in its structure and there is scope for the Game Master to add her own encounters and situations or simply play out the story to see where it goes. Ultimately, the scenario will end with the Player Characters with the truck containing the antidote driving hell for leather to Paradise City. There is good reason for this—the Saint is very annoyed with the Player Characters and she unleashes her dragon on them! This is not a dragon, but a helicopter, but it is so unfamiliar to the Player Characters that it might as well be. Finish the ‘dragon’ off, and the Player Characters can ride off into the sunset…

The ‘Domes of Thunder’ adventure is straightforward and should take a session or two to complete. If there are issues, it is that it introduces an NPC under one name and then changes it to another name and that it skirts around what the nature of the apocalypse is. There are mutants and there is prejudice against them. For example, only pure strain humans with neither mutation or nor mechanical modification can participate in the games. Further, the scenario does play around with the fantasy genre a little so it may not be clear to players in particular, if the setting embraces elements of fantasy as well, and if so, quite how far. This is because the security for the Saint’s Compound are called ORCs and Saint’s infiltrators are called Elves. The ORCs are derived from the name of the shopping mall, which was the Odessa Retail Centre, whilst the Elves are essentially Santa’s ‘little helpers’. Nominally, the scenario actually be taking place at Christmas, but that is not entirely clear. So, tonally, Domes of Thunder feels slightly odd in places, but not enough to disrupt the scenario.

Physically, Domes of Thunder is well presented with reasonable artwork. It needs a slight edit in places.

Domes of Thunder is as straightforward an adventure as you want it to be. The plot is none too complex and what the Player Characters have to do is easy to grasp. Where the the complication comes in is whatever mess the Player Characters get themselves into. There is plenty of room for Game Master to add her own content, but as is, Domes of Thunder is easy to prepare and bring to the table for a session or two’s worth of uncomplicated post-apocalyptic, cinematic action.

Web Watch

Webworld is a disc-shaped planet spinning through the cosmos tethered to the web of the great spider, An’Ansee. It is a world of fantasy and magic, of dragons and dungeons and trolls and tunnels and orcs and oubliettes, where all manner of creatures and peoples can be found, but there is no better place to the start than the heart of the realm, the city that welcomes all visitors from next door and the next universe, which dangles at the centre of the web spun by An’Ansee, who hangs below. This is Heq Moreveg, whose inhabitants can look up to the fantastic disc from which their home hangs and out into the night sky of the universe from they came. Just as the disc dwellers have the pleasure of looking down on the Heq Morevegians! It is a raucous city of dwellers from hither and thither, who rub along at the best of times, brawl with each at other times, and riot at the worst of times. Under the shadow of the disc above, it is the dubious duty of the Dusk Watch to keep the peace, whether through hard graft, honest graft, or dishonest graft—and if that fails, through serendipity and stupidity. And sometimes, if a dusk’s patrol goes very, very badly, the members of the Watch have to descend into the Underweb… Unfortunately, on their very watch, some new members of the Dusk Watch are not only going to find themselves voluntarily being led into the Underweb, but they are also going to find themselves very involuntarily being thrown into it! And with the future of Heq Moreveg at stake, they are going to have to find their way back out again. This is the set-up for Orcs & Oubliettes, a scenario and mini-supplement for ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—the roleplaying game of fast, cinematic, action comedy. Published by EN Publishing, best known for the W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying System, as used in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, where previous entries in the series have tended to be one-shot, film night specials, here the given scenario (or scenarios) is more expansive.

Orcs & Oubliettes is actually very slightly more than a scenario and mini-supplement for ACE! In fact, it is actually a roleplaying game all of its very own within the various worlds of ACE! There are numerous points within the adventures set in these worlds when the Player Characters can relax, take time out of their own adventures, to play out fantasy adventures with characters of their own. (Even to point as in thirties-set Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark where roleplaying games would have been an anachronism.) The genre for Orcs & Oubliettes is, of course, fantasy, and in particular, as its ‘noun-ampersand-noun’ name suggests, the roleplaying game fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons. Yet, Orcs & Oubliettes is not fully a parody of Dungeons & Dragons, for it is also by inspired by another fantasy, that of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series of novels. It is not set on a disc-shaped world per se, but rather Heq Moreveg is suspended in the webs spun by An’Ansee below it.

Heq Moreveg is described in broad detail, noting that although ruled by a king, but that the role is not hereditary, chosen from the members of the ‘Brazen Yeopersons of the Elective Council of Keepers’—or ‘BY’ECK’, whose are themselves elected representatives from amongst the city’s many and varied trade bodies. The city is built on stone slabs suspended in the web and subject to the strange cycle of light and dark from a sun that loops around the disc above casting regular periods of day and night. The three main districts of the city swirl out from the city centre—the Monarch’s Spiral, which contains the government buildings, guild headquarters, and houses of the rich; the Residents’ Spiral where most Heq Morevegians live; and the Traders’ Spiral, where most of the city’s trade and business is conducted.

In terms of characters, Orcs & Oubliettes provides four pre-generated members of the Dusk Watch. One is an experienced Watch Captain, a silver-plated mechanoid with a heart, but the other three are totally inexperienced. They include a larcenous faerie Sprite, a teenage wizard, and an inattentive Troll, but details of the Sprite and the Troll are included for the players to create their own using the ACE! rules. There is also a list of equipment and gear to buy and find, all the way up to magical items like a Climbing Potion and a Riveted Rod that always stays in place, Bag of Storing and Lidded Eye lantern whose light reveals anything invisible, Bracers of Giant Strength and even a Lamp of Wishes!

More than half of Orcs & Oubliettes consists of the eponymous scenario. On their very first shift, the Dusk Watch’s newest patrol is caught up in a diplomatic incident. An emissary from a warlike and carnivorous plant species has been kidnapped and dragged into the Underweb, so they have to rescue the diplomat before war breaks out! Despite their efforts, the newest members of the Dusk Watch find themselves ex-members after the rescue attempt goes awry, the emissary turns on them in a murderous rage, and they are not only blamed for his death, but put on trial and found guilty too! Their sentence is to be thrown into the Orphic Oubliette, an interdimensional pocket where the city’s most notorious criminals and darkest secrets are dumped and forgotten. The Orphic Oubliette actually turns out not be quite as dangerous as its reputation suggests, and the Player Characters will find some help coming from unexpected quarters—at least in traditional fantasy roleplaying terms—a tribe of helpful Orcs, and be able to get back out with relative ease. They will also have found the means to clear their names, but that still leaves the question as to what is actually going on and who is responsible.

‘Orcs & Oubliettes’ clips along at a handy pace, a classic fantasy tale, slightly tongue in cheek in tone, of despicable plans and unbridled ambition. Along the way, the Player Characters will bargain with a demon, gain a mighty forgotten weapon, and uncover a grand conspiracy hidden within a grand conspiracy, all before facing a dragon, stopping the city from going up in flames, and so saving the day! The scenario itself should take a secession or two, to play through, three at most.

Physically, Orcs & Oubliettes is well presented with decent, if dark artwork.

Although Orcs & Oubliettes does indeed involve orcs and oubliettes, and does descend into dungeons—or oubliettes—not once, but twice, this supplement for ACE! is not the parody of Dungeons & Dragons that the title suggests it to be. Instead, this is more about the weird mélange of a city hung in strange circumstances above the oubliettes and the schemes and shenanigans going on there. The obvious inspiration and its familiarity may result in some players finding it too familiar and some finding that it is not familiar enough, so Orcs & Oubliettes is not going to sit—or like Heq Moreveg, hang—in everyone’s sweet spot. Nevertheless, Orcs & Oubliettes is an entertaining scenario that will provide a couple of fun sessions’ worth of play.

Star Trekkin’

These are the voyages of the starship FSS Brazen. Under the command of Captain Wayjane, the ship has been directed by the Federated League of Planets, to undertake a mission of exploration beyond the frontier to discover strange new worlds, weird never before encountered species, and promote the benefits of life in Federated League of Planets (a.k.a. FloP). With the engines primed and ready, the crew buzzing with exciting, the FSS Brazen is ready to set out from Near Space 9 and begin her five-year mission. However, this mission will not be without its difficulties. The crew will have to learn to get along as it discovers mysteries and uncover strange stellar phenomena and faces numerous enemies. These may be mighty starships from the martial Kulkan Empire or the devious infiltrators from the Boredian Dominion, but they could be old enemies too, such as Duchess Ali Cann, a super soldier who served FLoP until a truce was signed with the Kulkan Empire. Now she feels abandoned and has sworn her revenge, so guess which FLoP vessel she has in her sights? Then there is ‘R’, a super being incensed that the members of FLoP even exist and could even go so far as to put them on trial to prove that they have the right to continue living in the same universe! This is the continuing mission of the FSS Brazen: to recklessly go where plenty of people have probably been before… and hope that nobody gets too upset to start major interstellar war! This is the set-up for Beam Me Up, a scenario and mini-supplement for ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—the roleplaying game of fast, cinematic, action comedy. Published by EN Publishing, best known for the W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying System, as used in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, where previous entries in the series have tended to be one-shot, film night specials, here the given scenario (or scenarios) is more expansive.

Beam Me Up is very obviously and unsubtly inspired by the Science Fiction franchise, Star Trek. Which has the advantage of making everything in Beam Me Up more than a little familiar to most people. As with other supplements for ACE!, it very much wears its inspirations on its sleeve—or in this case is that on its spandex one-size too small, but still fits all, jumpsuits? Whilst a player may find it just a little too familiar, he will also find the genre and setting very easy to grasp. Similarly, as with other supplements for ACE!, a set of pre-generated characters is available to download to use with Beam Me Up, but the players can create their own. Several new roles are suggested. These include Captain, Chief Engineer, Comms Engineer, Hologram, Gunner, Ship Counsellor, and Pilot. The simplicity of the ACE! system means that whilst Beam Me Up defaults a mish-mash of elements drawn from across multiple different iterations of the Star Trek franchise, the Game Master and her players could easily adjust their game to fit whichever era of the setting that they want to game in.

Given that this is a Science Fiction roleplaying game involving starships and high technology, there are some details on its role in the game. The setting is post-scarcity, starship crews can replicate almost everything bar weapons of mass destruction, and are usually armed with blazers, which they should mostly use with the stun setting. Also, translocators enable crews to beam up and down from planets and even move instantly within a ship. Beam Me Up also defines its starships and provides rules for starship combat. A starship has four stats—Science, Shields, Size, and Warp—typically rated between one and ten—plus ratings for Health, Defence, and weapons and damage. Where a ship’s stats are higher than those of a Player Character for a particular action, then they can be used for a skill check instead. For example, the Chief of Security might want to use the ship’s scanners, but his Smarts is lower the ship’s Science, so his player can roll using that it instead. It is a nicely little levelling effect and it highlights the fact that the Player Characters are aboard an advance starship. Combat is handled in a narrative fashion and each Player Character have a particular role when it comes to combat. Thus, the Chief Pilot will fly the ship, the Gunner will fire weapons, the Chief Science Officer will operate the scanners, and so on. Here Beam Me Up is underwritten, really relying on the skill of the Game Master to adjudicate the different roles and how they affect combat. Some pointers as to what the roles might do would have been helpful. Should an attack hit a starship, it will reduce the shields and then health, and once the latter has gone, the ship will suffer critical hits.

The scenario in Beam Me Up is in line with its inspiration, episodic in nature. Effectively, its three acts are separate and the first two can be run in any order (though they are written and presented in a simple and playable order). In the listed first act, ‘Shotgun Ali’, the FSS Brazen sets out on its maiden voyage and is sent to check up on a missing vessel, the FSS Independent. When the crew find her, they are suddenly attacked by the ship and then boarded! After driving off the super tough boarding party, the Player Characters need to return the favour and beam aboard the FSS Independent to find out what is going on. The second act is ‘Incident at Boredia I’ when on a trip visit the world, the crew’s weekly report time is interrupted by the appearance of ‘R’, an alien super being who puts the crew and the FLoP as a whole on trial. To do this, he drags a ship from the Kulkan Empire to Boredia I and the Kulkan Empire vessel has the manpower to invade and conquer the planet below. Effectively this is a test to see how the Player Characters and the crew of the FSS Brazen will react to the Kulkan interference. Lastly, in act three, ‘Gunfight at the Brazen Corral’ in which the Player Characters get trapped in the holosuite and themselves cast as members of the Clanton-McLaury gang an hour before they face Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday on October 26, 1881. Events occur again and again until the Player Characters can spot and break the pattern and find out who or what is responsible.

None of the three acts are connected except for the FSS Brazen and the obvious inspiration. For example, ‘Shotgun Ali’ is drawn from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; ‘Incident at Boredia I’ is inspired by ‘Encounter at Farpoint’, the pilot for Star Trek: The Next Generation; and ‘Gunfight at the Brazen Corral’ is based on ‘Spectre of the Gun’ from the original Star Trek. These are not the only Science Fiction references in Beam Me Up, but they are, of course, the big ones. Both the Game Master and her players will have fun spotting the rest, likely groaning at them, as they appear.

Physically, Beam Me Up is a bright and breezy affair. The artwork is decent and the supplement is well written.

Beam Me Up veers widely between being cringeworthy in the broad parodying of its inspiration to actually being amusing. Part of the issue is not just the familiarity of the source material, but also with the parodying of it, so both feel over done and not really all that funny. What saves Beam Me Up are the three different episodes which dig deeper into the source material and play around with it to elevate the humour a little. In some ways, Beam Me Up is the most accessible and the least accessible of the supplements for ACE!, being too familiar, too on the nose, its humour underwhelming as a consequence.

Weirder Wonders

Wilden Falls is a nice town. It is surrounded by rich forest and sits on a lake with a waterfall that brings tourists all summer long. Out on Route 767 stands the Osterman Labs Research Facility, but it has been closed since the sixties and nobody goes there. The kids of the middle school and the high school get to enjoy the countryside and time to ride their bikes or drive their cars, free of parental supervision for much of the time. Located in the Pacific North West, the town also has a Mines & Mining Museum dedicated to the region’s played out silver mines, KWF Radio on which DJ Cherry Kilbourne plays the latest hits, Camp Whispering Pines where all sorts of fun activities take place over the summer—except five years ago when that terrible thing happened that nobody talks about, and when the kids get bored, there is the Pastimes Amusement Arcade where all the latest video games can be played for a quarter at a time and Sal’s Video where the newest releases on VHS can be hired for the night. Though you may have to wait until next year for the release of Spirits of Manhattan and Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark. This is the eighties, the best time for any kid to have an adventure and also the setting for Strange Science. This is a scenario and mini-supplement for ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—the roleplaying game of fast, cinematic, action comedy. Published by EN Publishing, best known for the W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying System, as used in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, the scenario is primarily intended as a one-shot, film night special.

Strange Science is inspired by all of the kids in peril adventures of the nineteen eighties. The Goonies, Weird Science, and Back to the Future, with just a suspicion of Twin Peaks, Stranger Things, Eerie, Indiana, and A Town Called Eureka. Like all of the supplements for ACE!, it very much wears its inspirations on its sleeve, but as much a player may find it just a little too familiar, he will also find the genre and setting very easy to grasp. Wilden Falls itself is quite nicely detailed, including all of the notables places in town and in its surrounds that all together capture the feel of small town America. The set-up is also flexible in that the Player Characters can be either Middle School kids or High School kids and Strange Science and its adventure, also called ‘Strange Science’ can run without any changes. All that changes is the age of the children and just how aware of the world they are. What does not change are the roles that the Player can be. There are six, consisting of Brain, Cheerleader, Outsider, Protector, Radio Presenter, and Tycoon. These are classic archetypes of the ‘kids in peril’ genre.

As with other releases for ACE!, the eponymously named adventure in Strange Science, is a three-act affair. It specifically begins in April, 1984, when odd things begin happening at the school. There is the arrival of an odd new pupil, ‘Steve Twentyseven’, the replacement of the regular science teacher, Mr. Goodall, with a substitute teacher, and a van turning up outside the school handing out free protein shakes. Fortunately, the protein shakes taste of sprouts and cayenne pepper, so are positively disgusting and no kid in their right mind would drink one of them. Plus they look like snot. If Steve Twentyseven acts oddly, then his parents—dad ‘Steve Radioshow’ and mom ‘Steve BakingSoda’—are even weirder... Investigating the ‘Steve’ family will lead to the mall, revelations as to what is going on, a lot of exposition, and some time travel. This is back to 1884 and the town of Wildenville where with the help of the missing Mr. Goodall, the kids can prevent what is going on in the future and hopefully get back to that future. Sadly, this does not involve a steam train or shouts of “Great scot!”

‘Strange Science’ is a surprisingly lengthy and detailed adventure that will take two or three sessions to complete. For the most part, the scenario is very obviously inspired by its source material and the Game Master and her players should embrace wholeheartedly the eighties it depicts. However, given the lack of a DeLorean, the Player Characters need another way to travel back into the past, which is to have their minds cast back rather than their bodies. When this happens, their minds occupy the bodies of the men and women of Wildenville, which should lead to some roleplaying opportunities as the children of 1984 suddenly find themselves occupying the bodies of adults of 1884!

Written as a one-shot, Strange Science does include some notes on how to expand it. These are brief, but include adding in supernatural elements and possible sequel and crossover with Spirits of Manhattan. These are only suggestions though and the Game Master would need to develop and write it on her own.

Physically, Strange Science is a bright and breezy affair. The artwork is decent and the supplement is well written.

Strange Science is not a ground-breaking or even a great adventure, but then it is not trying to be. It is a little supplement and scenario that delivers exactly what it promises—eighties nostalgia, plus plenty of weirdness and a mystery that only the kids of small town America can see and solve. This is a great little combination that will be fun to play and fun to go back to if it gets the sequels it deserves.

Action & Archaeology

It is 1936 and as the world marches towards a greater conflict, there is a secret war being fought from one archaeological dig site to the next. Agents from the major nations are scouring the past to gain advantage and power in the present, unearthing and discovering ancient artefacts and objects of awe before the other side can. In this mix steps an archaeologist dedicated to keeping the past out of Nazi hands and in a museum, even if does involve working with Washington, D.C. and Army Intelligence. It is not though, Doctor Henry Jones, Jnr. Otherwise known as ‘Indiana Jones’ and this is not pitch for the third Indiana Jones roleplaying game. It is instead the set-up for Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark. Putting aside the fact that ‘Montana Drones’ is undoubtedly the worst name imaginable, beyond groanworthy, for any Indiana Jones-style, whip-cracking, fists flying archaeologist, Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark is an adventure and mini-supplement for ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—the roleplaying game of fast, cinematic, action comedy. Published by EN Publishing, best known for the W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying System, as used in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, the scenario is primarily intended as a one-shot, film night special.

Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark is an adventure for four adventurers—cocky archaeologist, Montana Drones, optimistic socialite, Lou Boble, clumsy professor Johan Henry, Jr., and cynical botanist, Johnnie Cobbler—available to download from here. Alternatively, the players can create their own, inspired by the source material, and Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark does include details of several new Occupations, including Botanist, Double-Agent, Socialite, and Witch. Of course, changing the characters likely means changing name of the adventure too as Montana Drones will no longer be the star. There are relatively few additions to the Awfully Cheerful Engine! and relatively little setting background given in Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark because, after all, everyone is going to be familiar with the genre and the setting from the films which inspire this supplement.

‘Raiders of the Cutty Sark’ is not named for the famous tea clipper from the nineteenth century, but for the Cutty-Sark, the famous shift worn by the witch character in Tam o’ Shanter, the poem by Robert Burns. The Nazis are after it because they think it possess some kind of sorcerous power and stealing it from under the nose of the British government would be a major coup. The adventure will take the Player Characters from Jordan and the Middle East, around the world back to Halcyon Hall at Bennett College in upstate New York where Montana Drones teaches, and then out again to Scotland and a showdown with Nazis! The scenario is not very long, divided into three parts, and has room for the Game Master to insert her own content and so expand it beyond a single night’s worth of play. For example, for the third part, the Player Characters travel from London to Scotland and the scenario suggests that the Game Master run a ‘Murder on the Scottish Express’ mystery rather than describe the journey in narrative terms.

The scenario begins in Jordan with ‘Buried Secrets’ and essentially where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade left off—Petra. The Player Characters are on the track of an ancient Greek artefact said to be in the Soldier Tomb, but in the course of finding and taking it, have to avoid a series of traps before they can escape the tomb. This leads to the Player Characters’ first big decision—how to deal with the scenario’s villain who turns up just at the wrong moment. Do they hand over the artefact or do they make a run for it. The scene is straight out of the start pf Raiders of the Lost Ark, as is the villain, right down to the white linen suit and Panama hat! This is mercenary archaeologist, Eric Freeman, neatly named after Paul Freeman who played archaeologist René Belloq in the film. If ‘Buried Secrets’ is all action and traps, ‘Horror at Halcyon’ brings the Player Characters back home and to weirdness at Bennett College with a strange mystery, but not before they have a chance to play a game of Oubliettes & Occultists for those who want to play a roleplaying game within a roleplaying game! Something is causing vines to grow all over the walls of the college, trapping teachers and professors alike, so the Player Characters will have to hack their way through the foliage to find and confront the source. There are lots of Lovecraftian references in this adventure, but the pulpy tone means that the Player Characters are unlikely to be driven mad.

The third and final part of ‘Raiders of the Cutty Sark’ takes the Player Characters to Scotland. ‘A Breath of Fresh Ayr’ begins though in London where the Player Characters need to find out what the Nazis and their archaeological agent, Eric Freeman, are up to. This requires a mixture of charm and stealth because that information is held only at the German embassy, which fortunately, is holding a reception. What they will discover is that Freeman, and thus his Nazi masters have discovered the location of the Cutty-Sark. Unfortunately, the protectors of the Cutty-Sark know everyone is coming, so not only will the Player Characters have to deal with Freeman and the Nazis, but also with whatever those protectors have in readiness to prevent anyone taking the Cutty-Sark away.

Physically, Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark is a bright and breezy affair. The artwork is decent and the supplement is well written.

Each of the acts in ‘Raiders of the Cutty Sark’ is short and solid, but together they do not form a cohesive whole. This is because each act is about an entirely different situation and an entirely different archaeological treasure, and there is nothing to connect the three except the Player Characters. Act one, ‘Buried Secrets’ does set everything up very nicely in Indiana Jones style, but the second act is a diversion and where the third should be the main plot of the scenario, it is not. It does not help that equal focus is paid to each of the acts and ultimately, ‘Raiders of the Cutty Sark’ is episodic rather than a whole. It might be the case that the Game Master adjust it to give more of a lead in time for the Cutty-Sark and its importance to the Nazis to grow in terms of story significance, but that is moving away from the intended one-night, cinematic style of Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark.

Big Apple Apparitions

To cut to the chase, Spirits of Manhattan is a scenario which lets you play in an alternate universe not dissimilar to that of the 1984 film, Ghostbusters, or indeed, the 1986 roleplaying game based on it and published by West End Games. In the scenario, the Player Characters are members of Ghostbreakers, who in a previous incarnation, in 1984, prevented the opening of dimensional gate to hell as an outbreak of ghosts, spirits, and other nasties haunted the streets of Manhattan. Once they get the call and are alerted to a supernatural occurrence, they will race from their headquarters in their Ghostmobile—actually a disused Range Rover Popemobile used for Pope John Paul II’s visit to the United Kingdom in 1982, so not only right-hand drive, but also blessed and holy—and confront the ghostly happening. They will be able to detect the ghosts and other apparitions with their ElectroMagnetic Field Detectors, see them with their Spirit-Spectacles Goggles, perhaps consult their copy of Tobias’ Guide to Ghosts, Spooks, and Specters, then blast them into immobility with their ‘Spirit Stopper’’ Anti-Plasm Particle Thrower, and capture them using an Anti-Plasm Binder, all before returning to their headquarters to safely store the captured ghost! Sound a whole lot like Ghostbusters? Well, it does and it actually isn’t the Ghostbusters roleplaying game either because that has long been out of print. Instead, Spirits of Manhattan will do the job just fine until you have either saved up enough money to buy a copy of the original roleplaying game—keep saving if you want the dice too, or someone with deeper pockets than you gets the rights and brings it back into print.

Spirits of Manhattan is a scenario for ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—the roleplaying game of fast, cinematic, action comedy. Published by EN Publishing, best known for the W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying System, as used in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, the scenario is, of course, set in New York. With a few adjustments it could be set in the city of the Game Master’s choice. the background to the scenario is quite light, explaining a very little of the history of the Ghostbreakers, their equipment and how ideally it works, and the nature of ghosts and ghoulies. A ghost is measured by its EMF Class, from Class I and a nuisance all the way up to the dangerous Class VIII and the demons, demigods, and worse of Class X and beyond. The Class factor is a measure of its Power stat and the scenario includes a glossary of ghostly terms as well as sample entities, from the Class III Demonkin and Ghostly Creeps up the Class X Gozarr the Devourer. There is even a ghost called Slime Bucket, which, of course, likes to slime people. In addition, the basic equipment of the Ghostbreakers—the ElectroMagnetic Field Detectors, Spirit-Spectacles Goggles, ‘Spirit Stopper’ Anti-Plasm Particle Thrower, and Anti-Plasm Binder—are described in some detail as well as how they work. Users are warned that this equipment is often held together with duct tape and can be dangerous to use to both people and property. In terms of Player Character options, Spirits of Manhattan gives a list that includes Ghost, Demonologist, Exorcist, Inventor, Scientist, Student, and more, all with occupational abilities. For example, the Ghost cannot suffer any damage (apart from any weird gadgets), but cannot pick things up, the Demonologist knows how to hurt demons, and the Exorcist can hurt or hold off a ghost. Of course, the skills of parapsychology, cryptozoology, and parazoology will be useful too.

The bulk of Spirits of Manhattan is devoted to the scenario itself. The plot, which begins with the Player Characters as would be Ghostbreakers with access to the equipment, but none of the other set-up—so no disused former fire station as a base—and working at New York Columbia University Medical Center, has them receive their first call and go to a ghost emergency. This is at St. Peter’s Chapel, also on the university campus and involves an encounter with a minor ghost. It gives both the players and their characters a nice test run and successfully dealing with it also brings the Ghostbreakers to the attention of the university’s Dean, Richard Anderson (!). At first, the Dean is none too pleased with them, but after a second ghostly outbreak, the Ghostbreakers gain his support and he has the university sponsor their efforts. This is the chance for them to set up a base and begin working properly and for the scenario to really swing into action. This is with a series of tasks, including dealing with a ghostly creep at the fancy Glitzman Hotel, rescue crew trapped in a fire station by ghost gone health and safety mad, and capture a punk shrieker at a punk and new wave hotspot. These are nicely done encounters and really capture the feel of the scenario’s inspiration. Plus, there is plenty of room for the Game Master to add her own if she wants to expand the scenario into a longer scenario or even a mini-campaign.

Eventually, the main plot to Spirits of Manhattan kicks in and will drive the action to the scenario’s climax. This climax starts small, but ends big, with plenty of nods here to the source inspiration, but without copying it directly or exactly. So, no gigantic Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, but something similar. There can be no doubt that Spirits of Manhattan goes up to that line, but it does not cross it. One addition is that of ‘P.U.RE.’, the Protection of Undead Returned Entities, a rights organisation dedicated to the proper and humane treatment of the ghosts that the Ghostbreakers are capturing. ‘P.U.RE.’ can become a thorn in the Ghostbreakers’ side, especially in the long term if the Game Master develops the suggested sequels.

Rounding out Spirits of Manhattan is a quartet of four hooks for further adventures beyond its pages. These are thumbnail outlines only, but they ape the various sequels to scenario’s source material and although all four require a fair degree of input and development by the Game Master, they are still fun and engaging, and would make the basis of great sequels.

Physically, Spirits of Manhattan is a bright and breezy affair. The artwork is excellent, often done in a cartoon style, making the Spirits of Manhattan the equivalent of The Real Ghostbreakers. The maps are decent, but a bit too small to use with any ease. The worst aspect of Spirits of Manhattan is the flavour text, which is written in-character and means characters not mentioned elsewhere in the scenario. The Game Master will need to paraphrase a lot of it to really work.

There is no Ghostbusters roleplaying game anymore. Spirits of Manhattan is not the Ghostbusters roleplaying game, but rather a very knowing tribute to Ghostbusters. It captures the flavour and feel of its source material and this gives it a familiarity that is engaging and really easy to grasp, so that everyone knows what to expect and will be happy to play along. Above all, Spirits of Manhattan is a lot of fun and the Ghostbreakers will enjoy playing with its inspiration.

ACE! fun

ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—is a roleplaying game of fast, cinematic, action comedy. Published by EN Publishing, best known for the W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying System, as used in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, this is designed to handle anything from ghost hunting in New York to mercenaries operating underground in Los Angeles and everything in between, whether heroic galactic guardians, vampire slayers, or even cartoon animals fighting crime. Beyond being fast, cinematic, action comedy, it is meant to be multi-dimensional time-hopping, genre-mashing in terms of what it can cover, so long as the combination can still be enjoyed with bucket of popcorn and extra-extra-extra-large bucket of whichever coke variant you prefer. The core rules for ACE! are short, just forty pages in length, but a tenth of those are devoted to a long, rambling, and silly introduction by designer Sandy Petersen which will lead you into thinking that he is dead and speaking from beyond the grave. (Fortunately, he is not, but if you want to run a scenario in which he is and the heroes have to rescue him from hell, then ACE! might be a good start.)

A Hero in ACE! has a Role; four Stats—Smarts, Moves, Style, and Brawn—rated between one and five, stats for Defence and Health, and Trait. A Role can be a Talking Animal, another species like an Alien or Goblin or Vampire, a figure out of fantasy such as a Ninja or a Knight, an occupation such an Actor or an Inventor, or a Superhero. A Role provides a special ability, for example, a Kangaroo packs a mighty punch, so inflicts an extra point of damage, whilst a Trait, is a descriptive adjective which primarily serves as a complication, but under the right circumstances, might even be helpful. For example, cynical, Punk Rock, or Vain. To create a Hero, a player divides twelve points between the four stats, adds a Focus—an area of specialisation or expertise—for each Stat, which gives a bonus when using the Focus, and then selects a Role and a Trait. The process is quick and easy.

Name: Dino
Trait/Role: Clumsy Dinosaur Detective
Health: 8 Defence: 9
Karma: 6

Smarts 2 (Perception 4)
Moves 3 (Juggling 5)
Style 2 (Persuasion 4)
Brawn 6 (Brawling 6)

Mechanically, ACE! uses handfuls of six-sided dice. One die is a different colour, the Calamity Die. To have his Hero undertake an action, a player rolls a number of dice equal to the appropriate Stat or Focus. An Easy Target Number is equal to ten or more, Hard twenty or more, Herculean or more, and so on. These rolls are open-ended as rolls of six explode. If a one is rolled on the Calamity Die and the roll is failure, something goes disastrously wrong for the Hero. The nature of the disaster is determined and narrated by the players of the other Heroes, always for comedic effect. Fortunately, every Hero also has a number of Karma points. These can be spent to add an extra die to a roll, reduce the damage suffered by an attack, negate the effect of the Calamity Die, or to instigate a Flashback to reveal a previous event or action which helps the current one.

Combat in ACE! uses the same rules. Initiative is determined by the Moves Stat and mêlée by Brawn, ranged attacks by Moves, unless the Hero has the Brawling Focus or Shooting Focus, respectively. In either case of the latter, the result of the roll has to be equal to or higher than the defendant’s Defence value. Damage ranges in value from one for a punch, two for a club, and three for a pistol to four for a machine gun, and five for a bazooka. Heroes in ACE! do not die, but they can be knocked out.

ACE! also adds rules for magic with the addition of the Power stat. In fact, the Power stat can be magic, psionics, the power of prayer, and so on. It just depends on the type of game being run, but the Power stat can be used to do anything in the game—it just costs a point of Karma per use. There is no list of spells or psionic abilities, but a player can easily come up with ones of his own.

For the Director—as the Game Master is known in ACE!—is given a selection of ready-to-use Extra, from Mooks to specific Extra, like a Dark Lord and a Tyrannosaur. What ACE! does not have is an adventure. Instead, it points to adventures already available, such as ACE #2: Spirits of Manhattan and ACE #3: Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark and presents a list of inspirations. These range from Ghostbusters, Dangermouse, and Guardians of the Galaxy to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, Star Trek, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Of course, ACE! is itself inspired by the Ghostbusters roleplaying published by West End Games in 1986 and the publisher’s own W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying system.

Physically, ACE! is cleanly presented with lots of colour artwork. If there is anything to grumble about ACE!, it is perhaps the lack of an opposite to the Calamity Die. So, either a Hero can succeed, fail, or fail catastrophically, but cannot succeed with elan or great success. The most obvious would be to have a roll of six on the Calamity Die count as this if the roll succeeds or if a certain threshold above the Target Number is rolled. This though will be down to the Director rather than the rules.

ACE! is lightly written and designed. It is easy to pick up and play, and it wears its inspirations on its sleeves or rather, in its Roles. Whether Ghost, Druid, Archaeologist, Con Artist, or Stuntman, ACE! draws on a lot of genre sources for the types of Heroes that the players can roleplay, each one pointing to one or more films, comics, or television series. The lack of dramatic success in the mechanics means that it cannot necessarily be as cinematic as perhaps it wants to be, but the Flashback option for Karma use adds a fun storytelling option and the rules for magic or Power are pleasingly open and flexible, but without being overpowerful. ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—is just that, an awfully cheerful, light system that is easy to pick up and play whether inspired by a particular film or setting or mashing their genres together.