DASH: A bolt-alike

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DASH is a hack of BOLT by Ajey Pandey inspired by the two mechanics of the FATE SRD, specifically FATE Accelerated, which make it sing to me: Aspects and Stunts. It merges the aspects with the skill and characteristics system from Bolt as Truths, and integrates stunts with feats.

The core concept of DASH is to preserve the resolution system and flow of play from BOLT, while integrating the elements of FATE that give it a more narrative bent. By tying everything to truths, it creates a game where building your character gives you a more targeted idea for who or what they are, while also helping guide narrative play.

Since DASH is a modification of BOLT, it assumes access to the base rules. Perhaps a future version will be made to be fully self sufficient, but for now, it piggybacks off of the systems already set in place there, specifically resolution and character creation.

You can find BOLT over at https://ajeypandey.itch.io/the-bolt-rpg-engine-v021, and the FATE SRD over at https://fate-srd.com/

Currently contains:

• The Core Rules for DASH

TBA:

• An example setting or game
• Some Art or a Logo maybe

Credits and Licencing

Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike.

This game borrows mechanical elements from two other SRDs, as mentioned in the introduction. Those are namely BOLT and Fate Core System. Both of those use a similar Creative Commons Attribution Licence. The Attribution can be found below:

BOLT by Ajey Pandey. You can find BOLT here: https://ajeypandey.itch.io/the-bolt-rpg-engine-v021

Fate Core System and Fate Accelerated Edition © 2013 by Evil Hat Productions LLC. Developed, authored, and edited by Leonard Balsera, Brian Engard, Jeremy Keller, Ryan Macklin, Mike Olson, Clark Valentine, Amanda Valentine, Fred Hicks, and Rob Donoghue. You can find the FATE SRD Here: https://fate-srd.com/fate-accelerated/get-started

Images:

Below here is a text form of the screenshot images for accessibility purposes:

Image 1:

The core mechanics

Truths

Every character consists of a series of truths about themselves. Truths define the extent of their capabilities and help establish who they are, as well as what they can do. There are two types of truths:

The first is Capital T Truths, which are stable realities about the character. A characters characteristics and skills are the main truths in this category, as they rarely change, and when they do, it’s usually as part of advancement. They establish what you can do with ease and your relative competency to others. Most of these have a number associated with them, specifically those serving as stats. A Capital T Truth might be something like “hometown arm wrestling champion 3 years running” for Fortitude, or “Never missed a duolingo notif” for language skills, which are facts that won’t reduce in quality and tell us what you can do.

The second are transient truths, which shift over the course of play, often as frequently as once a scene. On your sheet, these take the role of your incentives from base BOLT, but environments and situations can also have transient truths for everyone to manipulate. These can vary from “I know who I am” for a personal truth or “the smog makes the junkyard look clean” for an environment.

Image 2:

Rating	Meaning	Example (Reflex)
-2	I’m sorry	I trip over my own shadow
-1	Abysmal	I tried to juggle and broke all the glass in the room
0	Non-existent	I injure myself assembling plastic bricks toys
1	Mediocre	I can do two kartwheels before getting dizzy
2	Good	I can pat my head and rub my belly at the same time
3	Great	I can juggle with my feet
4	Legendary	Olympic gold medalist in acrobatics
5	Unique	The most flexible being alive