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Okay, there are enough Cortex games out there that we should probably have an effort post. Especially since the most recent iteration (arguably the third edition, ish) was just released. WHAT IS CORTEX? Cortex, or Cortex Prime, is a dice-pool narrative role playing game. It's got a long and storied history (though not particularly so by RPG standards). Currently, it's owned by Fandom, who bought it from Cam Banks. It is generally understood that Fandom (of Wikia fame) saw all the money they were making from D&D Beyond (they make that, too) and realized if they had a house system, they'd make more money. The Core Mechanic. This is a tough one, because Cortex is a modular system, so no two Cortex games play quite the same. This isn't entirely bullshit. At its core, a game of Cortex involves assembling a pool of rated Traits. You might have a d10 in Social, a d6 in Intimidate, a d12 in Justice, and a d8 Damning Piece of Evidence, and roll them. You take the two highest, and that's your Total. If the effect isn't merely binary but rated, then you may use any die not used in creating your Total and count it as your Effect Die. So you might have a 14 with a d8 Effect Die, which trumps a 14 with a d6 Effect Die but loses to a 15 with a d4 Effect Die. Difficulty is added the the opposing roll. Complications (like "handcuffed" or "embarassed") are as well. Some games use Stress tracks - those are rated in dice and added to the opposing roll as well. Ones are bad, they cause bad things to happen. Obviously, there's a meta-currency. There are a lot of different "mods" for the game, which can effect whether the GM uses the same core mechanic, what kind of structure action/combat scenes have, etc. If you wanted to fix a car engine, looking at past games using the system, you might roll...
From the outside, it's a bit messy. Take a look at this "rules menu" some people use to make sure they're considering all the mods. From inside a given game, it's actually really smooth and easy. Want to see it in action? Hammerheads, one of the three settings in the game, is freely available here. It's a game of non-violent adventure where the players are a team of emergency rescuers. Think Thunderbirds, but modern and not puppets. CORTEX PRIME  Arguably the third edition of Cortex. It was released in October of 2020. You can buy it in hardback or PDF, though the hardback comes with a PDF. Both versions also come with a fully searchable, responsive compendium of the rules. Think FateSRD but with all the fluff, charts, and art. The Hammerheads link above gives you a good idea of what the Compendium is like,There are two announced games right now - Tales of Xadia (based on the Netflix Dragon Prince show) and Legends of Grayskull, for all your He-Man and She-Ra needs (all versions). Remember when I said that from the outside, it's messy? That's the only way to see Cortex Prime right now. As of yet there are currently no games in a box, other than Hammerheads. So unless your GM is planning on hacking together a game for you, it's a bit of work if you're not familiar with the system. CORTEX PLUS The previous edition was arguably the golden age of Cortex. Cortex Prime is essentially a distillation of the four Plus games into a singular vision.  Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. One of the best superheroic role playing games of all time. (I would argue the best narrative role playing game of all time.) The license was yanked prematurely, which made its life short-lived, but it's brilliant. Cheap on ebay (at the time of the writing). An iteration of Cortex Plus Heroic. Had a full-fledged line of Civil War books and a copy of Annihilation existed as a PDF for a month.Occasionally derided for not having a robust enough character generation system (the official rules in the core book were "make it up, based on what you see in the comics and referencing the suite of heroes we've provided here!"), the book came with an okay random hero generation system in the supplements. Trait sets rolled by players include an Affiliation (Solo, Buddy, or Team), a Power die or two (Godlike Strength or Superhuman Reflexes or Lightning Mastery), Distinctions, and relevant Skill Masteries (Combat or Technology or Business).  Firefly Role-playing Game. Probably the most "traditional" of the four Cortex Plus games, this Cortex Plus Action game and its supplements are pretty accessible rules-wise, though the tone is written in cowpoke-speak which makes it mildly unbearable (in my opinion).While not as quite as deep as WEG's Star Wars, this line adds a lot of lore to the Firefly universe. Trait sets rolled by players include Affiliation (Mental, Physical, Social), Distinctions, and Skills (the traditional set).  Smallville Roleplaying Game. This is, in my opinion, easily the best RPG to play in a CW television show of all time. (It's a niche, but it's a good one.) How do you make a game where one person is Superman, and another is regular teenager whose special powers are that they're particularly well-liked?You make the game about Values and Relationships. Sure, Clark Kent can shoot laser beams through walls. But that's not going to help him get a date to prom or pass his exams. Trait sets players choose from include the aforementioned Values (Justice, Glory) and Relationships (with other PCs or NPCs), as well as Distinctions. This was the iteration called Cortex Plus Drama. Character generation uses a lifepath system that not only creates cool characters as a group but works as a mini-game in and of itself to generate a web of intrigue and NPCs with sinister agendas.  Leverage The Role Playing Game. All that stuff you love about Blades in the Dark? Flashbacks, hyper competent characters, starting missions when they're already one-third over with everything going sideways?Leverage did it first. This was the first Cortex Plus game, also a version of Cortex Plus Action. However, it used different traits. D&D style Characteristics (Strength, Agility), Roles (Hitter, Grifter), and Distinctions.  Cortex Plus Hacker's Guide. Not a game, but a resource. This is the ur-Prime. A distillation of the three rules sets (Action, Heroic, and Drama) with their respective IPs stripped out. Tons of example genres, essays from luminaries. My understanding was that this was a small Kickstarter that ballooned into a monstrous tome. That being said, it's worth hunting down if you can find it - a lot of the insight in the book is currently missing in Prime.CORTEX CLASSIC Retroactively called Cortex Classic, the first edition of Cortex was a lot more like traditional role playing games of the time. Life points and gear lists. But the underlying dice mechanics (of rated dice and rolling them together to get a total) are very much the DNA of Cortex.  Serenity. Not Firefly, Serenity. Just the movie. Different game. Not as good. Battlestar Galactica. Never played it, can't speak to it. Supernatural Role Playing Game. I still have PTSD from Supernatural going on as long as it did. I own this, but I can't open it.START THREAD That's Cortex. I feel like this system merits its own thread, so I started one.
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Nov 23, 2020 19:18
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I would never have guessedquote:Justice "I do what must be done" + Clark Kent "is my friend" for fixing a car, but I haven’t read the system...
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Nov 23, 2020 19:24
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I love free-form trait-y games, but I'm struggling with the rulebook and what feels like an overwhelming number of moving parts, even though it looks like it should be relatively simple. It's kinda like learning Bridge - you can't do step 1) do this step 2) do that, you've gotta take it sideways and learn it all at once.
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Nov 23, 2020 19:34
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Real excited for Tales of Xadia. The prestige they gave the announcement made it seem like it was something the creators were 100% behind rather than the cash grab that a lot of licensed games end up being.
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Nov 23, 2020 19:39
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Subjunctive posted:I would never have guessed Smallville is all about why you're doing something. So the primary Trait sets are Values and Relationships. Value choices are Duty, Glory, Justice, Love, Power, and Truth. Relationships are who is in the game. So, if you're fixing your car because you need to get to the dance to help Clark, you're doing what must be done to help your friend Clark. If those things are important to you, you'd roll big dice. If they're not as important to you, you roll smaller dice.
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Nov 23, 2020 19:39
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I love free-form trait-y games, but I'm struggling with the rulebook and what feels like an overwhelming number of moving parts, even though it looks like it should be relatively simple. It's kinda like learning Bridge - you can't do step 1) do this step 2) do that, you've gotta take it sideways and learn it all at once. Yeah, as noted, it's a bit messy unless you're looking at it from "within" a game. I might suggest Hammerheads? (Which is free.) I feel like this is the kind of thing that was one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenarios. Cam Banks pitched a Kickstarter for this Prime book - he was a solo dev with no IPs to his name, this seemed like something a core, dedicated Cortex fanbase wanted. Then Fandom bought Cortex and brought Banks on board. Now, Fandom's in a weird position. Do they release a game first (that they have to license and design), pissing off a lot of core Cortex fans? Or do they release the promised book, which is not a fantastic introduction to Cortex if you're not already on board.
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Nov 23, 2020 19:42
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Leverage is something that very much excites me, both because I'm a big fan of the show and because I liked what I saw of the system, but has anyone here played it? It'd be interesting to see how it works in practice.
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Nov 23, 2020 21:09
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Leraika posted:Leverage is something that very much excites me, both because I'm a big fan of the show and because I liked what I saw of the system, but has anyone here played it? It'd be interesting to see how it works in practice. I have. I haven't played any of the Classic games, but I've played all the Plus games. Leverage is real smooth. It's probably the easiest of the Plus games to get in to (mechanically). Ask away, I'll try and answer.
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Nov 23, 2020 21:15
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CitizenKeen posted:Smallville is all about why you're doing something. Also the game's about superhuman soap opera drama, so you won't be doing that's much worth rolling for that you can't tie back to your motivations and people you know.
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Nov 23, 2020 22:58
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CitizenKeen posted:
Would love to hear your thoughts on this compared to PBTA Masks, if you're familiar? This sounds really cool for grown up heroes. Also wow on She-ra and Dragon Prince games, what fantastic licences to have grabbed!
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Nov 23, 2020 23:19
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Harkano posted:Would love to hear your thoughts on this compared to PBTA Masks, if you're familiar? This sounds really cool for grown up heroes. I've played a lot of MHRP and am converting my Sentinel Comics campaign to MHRP. I've also played a fair amount of Masks. Cortex is not PbtA, but they're quite similar. Narratively, Masks is very much about one kind of supers game and the relationships and feelings those teenagers are going through. If I wanted to do a Masks game with Cortex (which you could), I would use a more Smallville-y Cortex. MHRP is very much about Marvel comics and the stories the main lines want to tell. I'd say it's the second-most faithful adaptation of the feel of a source material, after Star Trek Adventures. Mechanically, Cortex is a little crunchier. It's still very narrative. But in PbtA, you describe what's up, trigger a move, roll dice, and interpret the outcome, and interpreting the outcome can take a bit of table discussion. In Cortex, you describe what's up, the GM calls for some dice, you build your dice pool and manipulate it with game mechanics, roll dice, and interpret the outcome, and interpreting the outcome can take a bit of table discussion. Playing "grownup Masks" with MHRP is a strong option, though you may find you want more "feelings" in your Cortex game than MHRP supports out of the box. But again, see Smallville, etc.
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Nov 24, 2020 01:07
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CitizenKeen posted:I've played a lot of MHRP and am converting my Sentinel Comics campaign to MHRP. I've also played a fair amount of Masks. Appreciate this. I played a campaign of the original Firefly RPG back in the day, so it's amazing to see how much the system has grown and expanded since then.
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Nov 24, 2020 01:25
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Harkano posted:Appreciate this. I played a campaign of the original Firefly RPG back in the day, so it's amazing to see how much the system has grown and expanded since then. Yeah, at this point, the breadth of IP it can do justice do is pretty insane.
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Nov 24, 2020 23:36
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Hrhgnrhg I'm glad this fuckin thread is here. I'm glad Cortex is alive enough again to have this thread. I'll be much much much more glad when we have, like, half the stuff promised in the Kickstarter (including my very own Titans Vs. Leviathans: All-Out War For Earth in the Spotlights). I'd have been yet gladder still if we'd gotten all that BEFORE He-Man and Dragon Prince took all eyes. C'est la vie, cuz Cortex is BACK BABY. For all the badfeels and hurt that came from this stuff (and my own dwindling mind, I imagine), I am genuinely excited to get on the rest of the release materials, and genuinely excited to do stuff especially in He-Man. He-Man is something I didn't even think of as being inspirational until someone applied the Cortex lens to it, then it suddenly became the only game I know to capture that very specific "cyborgs and mutants vs. pulp fantasy heroes in an insane comic book universe" feel. I'm excited for the future!!!
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Nov 25, 2020 06:13
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I will be very, very happy when Fandom can leave behind the Kickstarter. Serving two masters makes nobody happy.
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Nov 25, 2020 19:18
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https://twitter.com/CortexRPG/status/1331719170971471872 It has generally been my experience that when a company starts doing weekly streams, the marketing is about to get underway.
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Nov 25, 2020 23:21
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CitizenKeen posted:I have. I haven't played any of the Classic games, but I've played all the Plus games. It took me forever to remember I'd posted in this thread whoooooooooooooops. Anyway I guess the biggest question is 'how well does the game handle everything going to poo poo and not in a fun leverage way'.
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Nov 25, 2020 23:34
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Leraika posted:Anyway I guess the biggest question is 'how well does the game handle everything going to poo poo and not in a fun leverage way'. Can you elaborate on the question? I'm not quite sure what you mean. Failure is always super fun.
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Nov 25, 2020 23:39
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Leraika posted:Leverage is something that very much excites me, both because I'm a big fan of the show and because I liked what I saw of the system, but has anyone here played it? It'd be interesting to see how it works in practice. Leverage does exactly what it says - but you want a genre fan to not only GM but play the Mastermind to run it as written. It's one of the only three issues I have it; the other one is that for a campaign Blades in the Dark is a better game - but only because it takes most of the best parts of Leverage and mixes them with some of the best parts of Apocalypse World. The final issue I have with Leverage is that it's out of print and you can't even buy PDFs of it legally these days. If the 2010s are the decade of easy to play, easy to improvise GMing, rules light success-with-consequences games with single page character sheets and no looking things up in the rulebook that take literal minutes to teach then Leverage was one of the two games to open the decade in 2010 (the other, of course, being Apocalypse World). Yes, I've run it. I keep it as a back pocket game for one-shots rather than using it as a campaign game although normally use two hacks - I prefer the FAQs to the almost archaic six-stats inherited from Cortex Classic and the basic consequence dice (or whatever it's called) being a d8 rather than a d6. For a long term game I'd use Blades in the Dark, which has a much better crew and campaign sheet - but for a one shot I'll still use Leverage. On that note I find Firefly my best game for a light ensemble comedy game - if I was running a Ghostbusters game I'd use Firefly. You can't die, but consequences can escalate and d4s lead to lots of consequences. The newer Cortex+ Firefly and the older Classic Cortex Serenity game may be in the same universe but are about as different as D&D 3.5 and Dungeon World. No system should have a stat of d12+d2 and Classic Cortex is annoyingly fiddly.
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Nov 26, 2020 00:39
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neonchameleon posted:Leverage does exactly what it says - but you want a genre fan to not only GM but play the Mastermind to run it as written. It's one of the only three issues I have it; the other one is that for a campaign Blades in the Dark is a better game - but only because it takes most of the best parts of Leverage and mixes them with some of the best parts of Apocalypse World. The final issue I have with Leverage is that it's out of print and you can't even buy PDFs of it legally these days. If the 2010s are the decade of easy to play, easy to improvise GMing, rules light success-with-consequences games with single page character sheets and no looking things up in the rulebook that take literal minutes to teach then Leverage was one of the two games to open the decade in 2010 (the other, of course, being Apocalypse World). Yeah, Blades definitely benefits from having a campaign framework. When we discuss "the state of the art", that's something I'd like to see more games tackle (including Cortex). Cortex does struggle with any kind of "numbers go up" campaign advancement. All of its games have been about IPs that leverage "characters can change but not grow" TV/comic tropes. It'll be interesting to see, now that there's going to be a way for people to release their own poo poo, how the community either embraces or changes that paradigm.
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Nov 26, 2020 22:01
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Not that I want to be lowering my chances by increasing the applicant pool, but hey - Covok's running a Cortex Prime My Hero Academia game. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3949446
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Nov 29, 2020 23:13
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I think it might be a good time to link all of my hacks for the system. I have been on vacation since the 19th and I made a lot of Cortex Prime Hacks out of boredom. Star Wars Prime I actually made this one right after the book first dropped. It's a lot rougher because of the fact it was the first hack I made. It's based on the d6 Star Wars game by West End games and goes for their more modular design. Not my proudest game, though. Don't judge the others based on this one. Soul Empire This is actually another one I made a long time ago. It's a bit messy as well. It's off-brand Kingdom Hearts with the idea that it can touch any licensed property. Exalted: Blood And Fire - Fan Exalt - Nocturnals This hack is actually a supplement to the amazing Exalted: Blood And Fire hack by Jeremy Puckett. It's a hack for players to make the fan favorite fan-Exalt, Nocturnals. These Exalts are based on time travel, hopping universes, and other possibility shenanigans. Fallout New Vegas: Prime Fallout New Vegas is my favorite Fallout game. It has a fleshed out world, solid mechanics, and so many little details that every replay is a treat. This hack tries to emulate the game using Life Points, Talents, and a few other less used Cortex mechanics. Giant Corporate Owned Superhero Comics Heroic Roleplaying Want to play Marvel Heroic Roleplaying but can't find the book and don't want to pirate? This hack is a retroclone that tells you which models to use to remake MHR in Cortex Prime. Social Justice Superheroes After discussing my issues with how superhero have become "supercops" (a discussion influenced by Aubrey Stitterson and pointing out My Hero Academia's flaws), I decided to work on a game about leftist superheroes. Social Justice Superheroes explores a world where superheroes were once progressive, until conservatism invaded their space and took over. Superheroes then became another arm of fascist suppression. Recently, a figure tried to fight against this and was publicly murdered for it by a white supremacist superbeing, who was given pardon by the US government. Martyred, a new age of superheroes who are focused on actually protecting their communities have risen to fight against the conservative, fascist forces the dominate society. It's based on MHR, but personalized to a more HBO vibe. Most notably, this led to adopting Abilities, instead of Powers, and making a complex Reputation system to marginalized communities. My Hero Academia Ironically, I followed that up by making a My Hero Academia game, since the prior idea was made by pointing out its flaws. Just like the last one, it is made by personalizing MHR to fit its mood and themes. Fallen Angel This hack was originally a setting for Valor. It is based on an idea I had, which was attempting to remake Bleach but with western cultural elements. It then became your classic "anime does christianity" weird setting, with a lot of shonen elements, gnoscism, and some "God is Dead" elements. Dragon Age Prime A dark fantasy hacked based on Dragon Age. It's my only attempt to use Archetypes to mimic classes. It is similar to Fallout New Vegas, in some ways, as it uses Talents, Life Points, etc. to mimic the video game-y origins of the license. Also, a user going by "German Sanders" made an awesome character sheet for it!  DC Heroic Roleplaying One size does not fit all in superheroes. A lot of people tried to work DC back into MHR, back in the day, but it had issues. Marvel has people, DC has legends. I leaned into that, as well as issues I had with Marvel overall, to make a hack focused specifically on playing in the DC universe. Values, ideal stress, etc. Dragonball Prime Dragonball has been a joking benchmark in the superhero rpg world, alongside "can you put Batman and Superman on the same team in this game." I love Dragonball and tried my best to emulate its narrate rules in this hack. Most notably by using Power Level to handle the Saga power structure using the Multi-Level Scale mechanics. If you want to see even more hacks, I started a spreadsheet on the subreddit on r/CortexRPG for people to link their own hacks. So far, people have been linking all their hacks in there. It really helps people find a diverse range of potential games using the Cortex engine. Covok fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Nov 30, 2020 |
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Nov 30, 2020 20:48
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I feel like you could do Fate/Stay Night in Cortex but I keep bouncing off it.
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Dec 1, 2020 01:23
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https://twitch.tv/videos/823527023?t=538s The first Cortex Prime Time is out. Some thoughts as I watch it.
There's a lot of far horizon type stuff (like a roadmap that includes virtual tabletop), but that's too far out to give too much credence to, yet. CitizenKeen fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Dec 4, 2020 |
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Dec 3, 2020 19:52
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Covok posted:
Ooooo thanks for this, excellent.
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Dec 3, 2020 20:09
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CitizenKeen posted:[*]The ability to use Cortex Creator Studio to make products for the licensed material (i.e., sell your He-Man adventures) seems big and not previously mentioned 
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Dec 4, 2020 05:21
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https://twitch.tv/videos/824676754?t=928s First official Actual Play is out. (Though if you're not watching Into the Motherlands, that's really solid as well.)
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Dec 4, 2020 07:32
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Josh Roby (of Smallville fame) just released the playtest for Keystone, their Cortex Prime teaching game. It's D&D tropes through a modern lens, it's quite charming, and if you've never played a variant of Cortex, it looks like it'll shape up to be a fantastic on-ramp.
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Jan 22, 2021 18:50
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Avatar: The Prime Bender Avatar: The PRIME Bender is a Cortex Prime hack I made for playing the Avatar: The Last Airbender setting. It uses a lot of same text from my FATE hack. I love the Avatar franchise, if my massive fanfic project wasn't a dead giveaway. I tried my best to make this hack the best one that I could. Its my most extensive hack and has a lot of setting details and little one-off rules like there is even a section on pro-bending. Mobius Prime In my never ending crusade to convince people to read Ian Flynn's Sonic The Hedgehog comics, I have made this hack about playing the comic book adventures of the blue blur. I swear to God these comics are actually good and you will agree after meeting Tangle and Whisper. This hack tries to emulate the best elements of those comics for your tabletop game adventures.  My Alien Girlfriend Despite the picture, this is only loosely based on Tenchi Muyo. I wanted to strip the premise from the male gaze and the problematic elements of the setting. The basic concept is that you started dating an alien and now your life is full of wacky alien hijinks So far, my first and only attempt to mess with Pathways. When I was on the Discord, the creators of Cortex admitted pathways are a pain-in-the-rear end and only one member of their development team ever could balance them right. I did my best but it's still rough.  Wild Hunt Prime My latest creation that I literally am still tinkering with. I think I may have put too many traits in. Let me know what you think. This is loosely based on Rooster Teeth's RWBY, but I took it in a different direction. Gone is the awful centrist race politics and the four maidens and evil Cortana wizard, this is just a simple story of people fighting evil monsters. I mean, the true history of the world is needlessly complex, but that only exists so you can introduce fun setting elements. I also always hate how these stories make schools so important but still have them just be schools. I mean, why is Hogwarts like the center of the universe? I decided to make it so the Schools ARE the government so it at least makes sense why they are so important. After all, they control the Hunters, which are necessary to protect the entire territory. Why wouldn't they take over? I also took a darker turn with some things. Still, I think this should be fun and I hope everyone likes it. So, to give you a brief overview: The important thing to understand is Wild Hunt is attempting to create the following:
Covok fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Jan 25, 2021 |
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Jan 25, 2021 00:36
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CitizenKeen posted:The Core Mechanic. This is a tough one, because Cortex is a modular system, so no two Cortex games play quite the same. This isn't entirely bullshit. At its core, a game of Cortex involves assembling a pool of rated Traits. You might have a d10 in Social, a d6 in Intimidate, a d12 in Justice, and a d8 Damning Piece of Evidence, and roll them. You take the two highest, and that's your Total. If the effect isn't merely binary but rated, then you may use any die not used in creating your Total and count it as your Effect Die. So you might have a 14 with a d8 Effect Die, which trumps a 14 with a d6 Effect Die but loses to a 15 with a d4 Effect Die. Hmm, I wonder if Agon 2e was influenced by Cortex, or if it's more that John Harper loves dice pools and both draw some design stuff from The Forge, and there's really only so many directions you can go with dice pool mechanics.
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Jan 26, 2021 18:16
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I got a strong Cortex vibe from Agon 2E. It's a great system, and I've been noodling on a mod where everybody rolls and interprets results based on a singular difficulty. It would require some math fixes, though, because the GM would roll a lot less.
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Jan 26, 2021 19:11
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I wonder if Cortex could handle In Nomine since God (ha ha) knows if we’d ever get a decent edition of the game.
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Jan 27, 2021 00:18
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Dawgstar posted:I wonder if Cortex could handle In Nomine since God (ha ha) knows if we’d ever get a decent edition of the game. This is an amazing idea. There's a number of 1990s properties that will never get a new edition that would benefit from it, and unlike most In Nomine has a strong enough character-driven vibe to benefit from Cortex. I've seen FATE conversions, but FATE isn't quite what I'd look for.
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Jan 27, 2021 00:26
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EverettLO posted:This is an amazing idea. There's a number of 1990s properties that will never get a new edition that would benefit from it, and unlike most In Nomine has a strong enough character-driven vibe to benefit from Cortex. I've seen FATE conversions, but FATE isn't quite what I'd look for. Yeah. I was thinking randomly that, say, 'Lilim of Dark Humor' is enough for a Distinction all on their own.
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Jan 27, 2021 00:39
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EverettLO posted:This is an amazing idea. There's a number of 1990s properties that will never get a new edition that would benefit from it, and unlike most In Nomine has a strong enough character-driven vibe to benefit from Cortex. I've seen FATE conversions, but FATE isn't quite what I'd look for. Ooh, that has potential, yeah. Offhand I'd maybe do something with Values, but give celestial characters the Seven Virtues and infernals the Deadly Sins, then tie the rising and falling mechanics to swapping them.
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Jan 27, 2021 10:17
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The Men Who Lived On May 2nd, 1998, a battle was fought in secret that decided the fate of the world. An army of wizards and witches allied with good stood against a cabal of dark magisters and their monsters for the fate of the world. Evil won that day and the world was plunged into darkness. The world of mundanes was forcibly introduced to the reality that witches and wizards have lived among them for years. Where they once stayed in secret, the Dark Lord now rules over mankind. Immortal, cruel, all-powerful: all the nations of the Earth had their leaders culled. In the confusion, the armies of men splintered and fell. The entire world is run by the Dark Empire. Such has it been for the last twenty three years. But hope isn't lost. Two years ago, a group of magus and mundanes began working together to fight the Dark Wizards oppressing the world. The Resistance, as they came to be known, fight for freedom and equality. While there is friction in this rag tag group of freedom fighters, they may be the world's only hope for freedom. The Men Who Lived is a Cortex Prime Setting inspired by the Harry Potter series of books. Instead of taking the approach of setting this game in a facsimile of a British schooling system, The Men Who Lived focuses instead on marginalized individuals banding together against facist forces. The concept comes from my main criticism of the Harry Potter fictional universe: the Wizarding world is utterly corrupt even without Voldermort and something needs to be done about it. For those unfamiliar or who may have forgotten, the Wizarding world of the Harry Potter franchise engaged in behaviors like slavery, mental abuse of muggles, manipulating muggle governments, and other such behaviors. In the first book, the reason the Wizarding world remains secret is not out of fear of violence, but a fear of giving away their gifts to the masses. The wizards even came up with a slur for non-wizards: "muggle." It even feels insulting to say. While some of these issues are recognized, they are never solved nor do the heroes ever try to fix these systematic issues. In a cowardly way, the prequels attempt to argue all the problems are really just in America, unintentionally forgiving all of the social issues in the British system. Despite the entire british wizard governmental system allowing a fascist ruler to take power, the heroes never reform the system. The heroes instead just change the players in charge of the government. This solution, which is treated as all that was necessary, would logically lead to another dark lord rising to power using the same methods as Voldermort. The Men Who Lived doesn’t actually use the Harry Potter universe. Instead, while taking direct inspiration, this hack is focused on a new, original world. That decision came for three reasons. One is that I will never afford the license. The second is that the Harry Potter world is tailored made for one story and it's a tad limited. These issues even cropped up in the story proper, with the series having to oddly justify how a school constantly stood at the center of the entire Wizarding world and could sway world events. My biggest gripe is how the British Wizarding world is portrayed as the center of the world. Everything seems to revolve around the British wizards. When directly asked, the author confirmed all magic around the world, in every culture, works exactly as it does in the books. Since the magic in the books is heavily inspired by British folklore, this is the author saying the British system is the only true system in the world. That's not only a tad offensive, but also utterly boring. Lastly, representation is a key issue. Almost all of the characters are white, cis and heterosexual. The only non-heterosexual character is only revealed to be so in the author's notes after the series ended. Due to the author's own bigoted beliefs and support of anti-trans organizations, there is absolutely no representation for non-Cis identities. That simply won't do. That's why The Men Who Lived strives to accomplish the following:
As for mechanics, the hack has an emphasis on the dramatic side. The title is not a game where you pull out your wand and blast away evil wizards while butt rock blares and someone does a kickflip. That would be awesome and I might make that game later, after typing that out. However, this game will focus more on tactical missions against the oppressors with the real focus being the tension and emotions of the scenes. The title uses direct referencing like all of my other hacks. You will need the Cortex Prime Handbook to play the game.
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Feb 2, 2021 02:54
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This Wasn't The "Magical Life Changing Adventure" I Was Expecting Magical Life Changing Adventure is a Cortex Prime Hack based on shows like Amphibia and The Owl House from Disney Channel. For those unfamiliar, they are isekai (“another world”) cartoons where a person from our world is flung into a strange and dangerous magical world. Not long after arriving, they meet a group of people and begin a found family affair. There is a great treat to the world that takes a personal interest in the heroes that they have to overcome. In modern American cartoon fashion, they is a clear focus on character relationships, their emotional states, and their personal growth. The goal of Magical Life Changing Adventure is to have those kinds of fantasy adventures in your own unique world. There is no setting for this game as there is a Setting Creation mechanic to help define your own magical world (See Setting Creation). A campaign of Magical Life Changing Adventure should be:
I tried to use Pathways in a novel fashion: setting creation. After talking on the discord, some of the creators of Cortex admitted that only one of the original devs was any good at balancing pathways. I thought, however, that Pathways could be stripped of their "difficult to balance" character creation aspect and be used just to make the setting and characters. If it works well here, I might use it in more hacks and it is a good way to expand your world with minimal GM input. This hack is also the second time I am using the Growth Pool. I first used it in The Men Who Lived. However, I only used it there because that hack was based on Trace 2.0 from the corebook. This hack tries to expand the Growth Pool to include its more traditional method of gaining dice through challenging Values and Relationships. I never played Smallville or any game that used the Growth Pool. This hack is an experiment to see if this system is worth keeping around and if it really helps drive drama. On paper, it seems like it should. Let me know what you think. Covok fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Feb 2, 2021 |
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Feb 2, 2021 04:11
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Tales of Xadia playtest starts https://talesofxadia.com/ I'm so used to playtest documents being Google Docs. (I know, many aren't.) Anyway, it's really nice to see a flashy, glossy, laid out playtest document. CitizenKeen fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Feb 4, 2021 |
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Feb 4, 2021 21:19
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I made this and I forgot I made this: Digimon Prime I borrowed a core idea of Greg Stolze's Better Angels for this one. The player to your left plays your Digimon Partner so that 1) it doesn't put too much burden on the GM and 2) ensures the group is always talking to each other. Of course, this only applies for roleplay as the Digimon Partner's Traits are used in conjunction with the Digidestined when an action is taken. They are a team, after all. Digimon was one of my favorite Saturday Morning Cartoons when I was a kid. My favorite series waffles between Adventure and Tamers. I don't mind Adventure 02 up to the end of the Digimon Emperor Arc and I like Savers. Never saw the seasons after Savers. I don't mind Frontier but I don't love it either. I haven't watched the 2020 reboot yet. The hack is explicitly trying to to go for the feeling of Adventure, with the Digidestined finding themselves Isekaied into the Digital World with no explanation and discover they are the chosen ones to save both worlds. I have found my hacks have gotten rather self-referential. I got into a habit of even copypasta passages I already written in other hacks and just changing the relevant details. On this one, I tried to mix the Power Level and Transformation mechanics of my Dragonball Prime hack together for Digivolution. I also placed Relationships very front-and-center by making them a Prime Trait. The weird "your Distinctions have two unlock slots and Hinder" that I pretty much put in all my hacks now is there too lol. The Values are Crests because, come on, you know that was what was going to happen. I hope you enjoy it!
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Feb 5, 2021 01:22
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While yesterday was good news for Tales of Xadia, apparently Fandom has also lost some faces including co-founder Adam Bradford. https://www.enworld.org/threads/adam-bradford-lauren-urban-todd-kenrick-leave-d-d-beyond.678047/
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Feb 5, 2021 14:17
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