The Legends of Anglerre RPG (LoA) by Sarah Newton and Chris Birch takes the Starblazer Adventures iteration of the FATE 3.0 system and adapts it for the fantasy genre. This game strives to cover multiple subgenres in the fantasy milieu, with the focus on the Moorcockian swords and sorcery setting of Anglerre, and the high fantasy Hither Kingdoms. The source material for this game is drawn from a series of British comics that appeared in the Starblazer Adventures comic books. References are made to various characters and events from the comics and can at times leave the reader a bit in the dark.

The physical book itself is an impressive tome at just over 380 pages. The cover is full color and depicts three adventurers posing dramatically in a ruined building. The interior of the book is predominantly black and white with the sidebars offset in parchment colored boxed. The artwork is predominantly drawn from the LoA comics.

The Dresden Files RPG (DFRPG) by Evil Hat Productions is their adaptation of the FATE 3.0 system to the world created by Jim Butcher in his novels. While not required reading to play the game, a brief overview of the novels will be helpful, as no such summary is included in the game, with that in mind, there are mild spoilers throughout. The novels are chiefly concerned with the cases taken by a private investigator who is also a wizard. He solves various crimes in the city of Chicago that have an occult connection. The writers of the RPG have done an excellent job of using an established intellectual property as a baseline setting and not allowing the characters from the novel to overwhelm the game, a situation that has hurt other settings in the past.

The book itself is a large volume at just over 400 pages. The cover is a full wrap around image depicting Harry Dresden, Karrin Murphy and Michael Carpenter doing battle against a host of supernatural foes. The interior of the book consists of full color pages that are printed to appear as if a coil bound notebook. This appearance is due to the fact that the game is framed in such a way that it appears to be a manuscript of the game written by one of the characters from the series of novels. This stylistic choice is furthered by the inclusion of marginalia written by the “author,” a werewolf named Will, Harry Dresden and Bob, a spirit assistant to Dresden.

The Introduction – or “Translator’s Foreword” – sets the scene magnificently. This is not, we are told, a modern game of mediaeval times but a role-playing game written in mediaeval times by some monks seeking a pastime, an imaginative entertainment. This delightful conceit is continued throughout the entire book, complete with mediaeval-style illustration.

The first chapter, Imagine, describes what the game is about. Beginning with a series of pen-pictures describing dramatic scenes from mediaeval life, the author explains how a group of young monks play a game of ‘Imaginings’ wherein they pretend to be other people: a brave knight or a cunning thief, perhaps.