Awesome Adventures, by Willow Palecek ★★★★

Willow Palecek has created a very streamlined version of the Fate RPG (available from Lulu Press). This is Fate with no stunts and no stress tracks, distilled down to telling stories with epic narratives. Because it’s so minimal, it focuses on the storytelling, which makes it well worth the (very quick) read just to see how she puts it together. The game comes down to just skills and aspects, and matters of game balance are handled by just cranking everything up to “awesome”— rather than defining any special powers or gadgets with stunts, you just spend fate points to invoke aspects for effect in any scene where they matter, whether they’re Latest Prototype from Q Division, MKULTRA Psychic Powers, My Cyberarm is Full of Surprises, Pedigreed Werewolf, or Arch-Mage of the Sequoia Tower. This would be a good system for running fast-moving, free-form stories.