Black Dreams and Other Bad Juju is the second installation of the FATE+Fiction line. It’s a PWYW product that includes 5 original short stories, each with a breakdown of suggested situation aspects, character aspects, consequences, and boosts. The stories come in separate files, about 5 pages long apiece, with the last page being taken up by the OGL.

Each story is about 1,000 words and they’re all character or setting pieces. There’s not a whole lot of plot to these - they’re mainly setting the stage, conflict, and characters. But that’s also sort of the point - to give you enough to spark your creativity.

A Flock of Cranes is the first story, and potentially the weakest. The setting was a little vague, there was only 1 aspect that got me excited, and there were some awkward sentences. That said, the ending was good enough that it got me interested in putting this into play.

All In is a story about some type of supernatural hunters sitting down to play poker. There’s a lot of passive voice in this story, but it’s interesting enough to get me excited. The aspects weren’t bad and there were good suggestions for consequences, but I wish they would have gone farther. Problems with the law are all well and good, but this story screams at me to hurt the PCs friends and family.

Bad Juju is a great cyberpunk vs. voodoo story. It’s loaded with flavor, has some actual action, and gets me excited about playing. There’s some French in there that they don’t translate and some colloquialisms that I had a little trouble following, but that actually seemed to enhance the setting for me. There’s some wacky punctuation in places, but that’s pretty secondary to me. The aspects were a little verbose (but ok), the consequences were good, and there was an interesting take on a boost.

For me, Black Dreams was a different kind of story than the others. Rather than dealing with a conflict, it deals with the consequences. I’d love to play in a game that explored this style of play, but I know I’d struggle with running one. Regardless, I found it a fascinating choice to include and it really kind of broke out of the box. There’s some profanity in this one, if that kind of thing offends you.

The last story, Call Me Ishmael, is a religious/supernatural story about the struggle of good and evil. I enjoyed the story and the deconstruction was pretty good. Again, I’d like to see the consequences taken a little further. Possession is an obvious consequence, which was overlooked. But I think some type of supernatural judgment is potentially implied and would have been in interesting addition.

I liked these stories and I really dig the idea behind this product. It does what it sets out to do - it gives me fodder for my imagination and gets me thinking about games. It’s equally useful for both players and GMs, since it includes story ideas and aspects both can use. It’s PWYW, so it’s absolutely worth it to download these.

So what do we have here?

First of all, it's a freebie. It's not PWYW, it's free. So judge all of this with the knowledge that it costs you nothing for this PDF.

Semper Fidelis is 3 pages long. It includes a very short piece of fiction, about 100 words, 1/2 a page telling what this product is, 1 page of discussion about the story, and a page of FATE OGL.

The fiction is a character piece. It presents you a situation with no real lead in or conclusion. Even the action had already passed. But I think it does what it sets out to do. It serves as a hook.

The story mostly asks questions and tries to prompt you to think about how you could use it in your game. It wonders why things happened, suggests the lack of specific detail allows it to fit into a variety of settings, asks what would happen if things were changed, and what the consequences of the story are.

These questions are fine. Nothing that really sparked my imagination. I think an important question potentially left out is "who are the PCs?" or "how does this relate to others?". I feel as if the assumption is that this might be a PC. But what about if the PCs were cops (I immediately thought this would be a great hook for NCIS)? Or friends of John? Or friends of Gunny? Those things get me excited about the story.

The side bar on this page includes a situation aspect, 2 character aspects, 2 consequences, and a boost. These, I think, are the best part. The aspects are good. They offer suggestions on how they're applicable, and what they mean. The boost is great. It's something I can really get behind. The consequences are a little lack luster, and I'd like to see more questions asked about it. What might happen to John? How will this affect those around John? How will this change John?

To sum up, this is a good, first, free sample. You can't go wrong for nothin'. I'd like to see future products have longer fiction. I'd like them to ask more questions with bite. I'd like them to offer more tie-ins with potential PCs. But if this is a preview of what's to come, I'll gladly get on board. I could use more of this. And I think other people could as well.