Character Creation Challenge 2026 Day 9: ACE!

For Day 9 of the Character Creation Challenge, I have a game that came out in 2021(?) but I discovered last year.  It is ACE! the Awfully Cheerful Engine.  It purports to be a Roleplaying Game of Action Comedy.  Since it's based on WEGs Ghostbusters, the grand-daddy of d6 dice pool games, one would hope it lives up to the claim!

 

ACE! is a rules-lite multi-genre game. The main rule book weighs in at 40 pages and covers the basics of character creation and how the system works.  The adventures show up in eight other booklets that cover a genre or parodies a specific IP.  Examples are Beam Me Up, Spirits of Manhattan and Orcs and Oubliettes.  These aren't campaigns, these are an adventure that gives you new roles for the characters and then offers ideas for continuing on in the setting if you like it.

 

Character creation is a snap.

 

You choose a role appropriate to the setting you are playing in.  A role can be a profession, an rpg class, what you are (martial arts turtle) or the type of superhero you are such as a speedster.  A role will often offer some benefit.  For example in the setting I'm creating my character for, Beam Me Up, the role of Chief Engineer can:

Once per day if you are in the engineering section, you can spend a Karma point to cause a starship to regain 1 Health or 1 Shield without a roll, or to make your ship go one warp speed factor faster than the Owner’s Manual says you should be able to. The warranty is voided if you do this, but when
did that ever stop you?

You then spend 12 points amongst four Stats: Smarts, Moves, Style and Brawn.  Traits range from 1-5.

 

Next, you choose a Focus for each Stat.  Smarts has a list including things like Accounting, Law and Occultism.  A focus adds 2d6 to the basic dice pool formed by the stat when the character is attempting something related to the focus.

 

Then you calculate your Strength and Health from you Stats.

 

Last you choose a trait.  Something that describes or defines your character.  Examples are cynical, gullible, lazy or teenage.

 

Give each character 6 Karma points, which are like "fate" points.  You can spend them to add dice to a roll or lower damage received.

 

Name, and you're ready to go.  AND, they have a nifty little generator to help you if it's too arduous to do it by hand.

 

I have to give my usual disclaimer and lament.  I haven't had the opportunity to play this yet.