Part homage, all farce, the AWFULLY CHEERFUL ENGINE! is an irreverent, affectionate parody of pop-culture tropes and a love-letter to 80s roleplaying games in a new, modern comic-book sized format! It’s a wacky roleplaying game of action comedy! With a foreword by Sandy Petersen, co-author of the Ghostbusters RPG!
It’s Awfully Cheerful!
This tabletop roleplaying game, which we’re calling ACE! with an exclamation point, is one of fast, cinematic, action comedy. With the emphasis on comedy. To play you need a handful of six-sided dice, a pen, and some paper. Each player plays one Hero, except for one player who takes the role of the Director.
Think of ACE! as an irreverent, fun-packed movie. You might play as ghost hunters in New York City, a band of plucky galactic guardians, vampire slayers, or soldiers of fortune in the Los Angeles underground. Heck, you might even be cartoon animals. Good grief!
It’s Multigenre!
Some roleplaying games are strictly fantasy or sci-fi. They have a world or setting which defines the characters you can play and the types of adventure you can have.
Not this one.
This is a multi-dimensional, time-hopping, genre-mashing, pan-galactic portal into any type of adventure you can imagine! Want to play in a fantasy world full of elves and orcs? Crew a starship as it explores the galaxy? Hunt vampires in Victorian London? Play as animal detectives, robot cowboys, wizards, ninjas, or time traveling bounty hunters?
The only limit is your imagination, and the requirement that you have fun.
Endless Adventure
If you’ve ever held a comic-book in your hand, the Awfully Cheerful Engine! will feel very familiar!
The core rulebook is just 30 pages in a bright, colorful comic-book sized format. We even gave it an issue number, like a comic-book!
After that, each issue is a standalone adventure, designed for one-shots or short campaigns. One week you might be fighting ghosts on the streets of Manhattan, and the next you might be exploring the frontiers of space in your trusty starship!
One thing will always stay the same though. We don’t take anything seriously! Life’s too short for that!
Fun, Fast, and Simple!
It’s not just Awfully Cheerful! It’s fast and fun, too!
You won’t get bogged down in endless rules and character sheets that look like tax forms. Your ACE! ID Card contains everything you need to know, and it’s only about the size of a credit card! But don’t try to spend it. It’s not a real credit card.
Making your Hero takes about five minutes. And that includes a coffee break.
