Tell Me About Cortex Prime

[Reynard]

This game gets brought up a lot and I have always sort of just glided past it. But I want to know more, and was hoping some folks could give me the rundown.

What kind of rpg is it (narrative, trad, other, mix)? How does it play? What is the general system like? What sorts of genres or settings or themes is it good for? How complex is it? How hard is it to learn? What have you used it for? That sort of thing.

Thanks.

 

[overgeeked]

What kind of rpg is it (narrative, trad, other, mix)? How does it play? What is the general system like? What sorts of genres or settings or themes is it good for? How complex is it? How hard is it to learn? What have you used it for? That sort of thing.

For most of those, unfortunately, the answer is: it depends. Cortex Prime is more of a toolkit than a completed game. You can build it to play in a lot of different ways. You decide which kinds of traits characters will have and through those choices you determine how it plays. If you want more action-adventure style gaming, pick some of these traits. If you want more narrative-drama style gaming, pick some of these traits. It's a universal system so you can do most genres and settings fairly easily. Again, just a matter of the traits you want. Likewise on complexity. You can keep it dead simple with one or two traits, or fill character sheets with a dozen traits and jack up the complexity.

It's a roll and keep dice pool mechanic. The higher the die type the better you are with that trait. It uses d4 through d12. Gather up one die from each of your relevant traits and roll. You pull out any natural 1s as potential complications and total the highest two dice for your result. Compare that to a static number or a roll by the referee. Higher roll wins. There is some complexity with dice shenanigans but that's getting into the weeds.

It's fairly easy to learn, though you will have an easier time learning from a pre-built version of the game. Unfortunately, most versions are out of print. Xadia is the only one I'm aware of in print. The old Leverage RPG, Smallville, and Marvel Heroic were build using a slightly earlier version of the same system. Cortex Prime can be built to mimic those earlier games quite easily.

I've used it for heist games (Leverage), drama-focused superheroes (Smallville), and action-focused superheroes (Marvel Heroic). I've tinkered with Cortex Prime a bit but haven't played it much in the last few years. There's a lot of fans over on RPG.net. You're likely to get a lot more and a lot more involved responses there.

 

[Reynard]

For most of those, unfortunately, the answer is: it depends. Cortex Prime is more of a toolkit than a completed game. You can build it to play in a lot of different ways. You decide which kinds of traits characters will have and through those choices you determine how it plays. If you want more action-adventure style gaming, pick some of these traits. If you want more narrative-drama style gaming, pick some of these traits. It's a universal system so you can do most genres and settings fairly easily. Again, just a matter of the traits you want. Likewise on complexity. You can keep it dead simple with one or two traits, or fill character sheets with a dozen traits and jack up the complexity.

It's a roll and keep dice pool mechanic. The higher the die type the better you are with that trait. It uses d4 through d12. Gather up one die from each of your relevant traits and roll. You pull out any natural 1s as potential complications and total the highest two dice for your result. Compare that to a static number or a roll by the referee. Higher roll wins. There is some complexity with dice shenanigans but that's getting into the weeds.

It's fairly easy to learn, though you will have an easier time learning from a pre-built version of the game. Unfortunately, most versions are out of print. Xadia is the only one I'm aware of in print. The old Leverage RPG, Smallville, and Marvel Heroic were build using a slightly earlier version of the same system. Cortex Prime can be built to mimic those earlier games quite easily.

I've used it for heist games (Leverage), drama-focused superheroes (Smallville), and action-focused superheroes (Marvel Heroic). I've tinkered with Cortex Prime a bit but haven't played it much in the last few years. There's a lot of fans over on RPG.net. You're likely to get a lot more and a lot more involved responses there.

Thanks for the detailed response. it is too bad there isn't a "Fate Worlds" style book for it to help newcomers grok the system.

 

[Haplo781]

Very narrative. Think FATE with Savage Worlds dice mechanics and you're not far off.

 

[Emirikol]

I have the Smallville (Superman) rpg book. I havent played it but always draw ideas from it. It reminds me to set up character and scene interactions over senseless monsters (most times).

 

[overgeeked]

Thanks for the detailed response. it is too bad there isn't a "Fate Worlds" style book for it to help newcomers grok the system.

It does have something like that in the Cortex Prime book. There are three fleshed out settings and system builds in the book. And it includes pointers on which traits to use for specific genres throughout. Not quite Fate Worlds, but close-ish.

 

[thullgrim]

There a couple of decent Cortex related game system podcasts, not actual plays. The system is customizeable in a way that many tool kit systems aren't. To the point where there isn't a even a default set of attributes.

The GM defines the traits and trait sets he wants to use for the given game/campaign. They can be defined in a way that is similar to traditional games, Str, Dex, Con etc. or you could define the traits you wanted to use as something like affiliations or powers, or relationships or distinctions Your dice pool is based on the traits the fiction invokes. The recommendation is to use three separate trait sets. Everything in Cortex is defined by a die value (like Savage Worlds in that respect)

You might define a D&D game with traits sets for Attributes, Class, Background, and Skills for instance. So Attribute: str, dex, con, int, wis , cha. Class: Fighter, Wizard, Rogue. Background: Soldier, Blacksmith, Noble and so on.

When you build a dice pool the relevant dice are placed into your pool and you roll against a DC the GM has rolled via his own assembled pool.

An example, and I may mess this up. Our fighter wants to kick down a door. His Strength (d6) , and Athletics (d6) skill come into his pool. Maybe Fighter (D8) does or doesn't you'd want to justify in the fiction, but if his background was as a carpenter (d4) sure you could add it. So our guy is rolling d6+d6+d4 in this case. The Door is rated at a say a D6 by itself but it's swollen over time (d6) so the GM DC pool is d6+d6. GM rolls a 7, fighter rolls a 6+5+2. Fighter picks 2 of them and keeps the third for an FX die.

FX die are used to proc other effects. There's a hitch (complication) in the dice when a 1 is rolled in the pool.

In any case I probably messed of that up from memory. That said, the system is neat. I like it more than Fate. It's kind of a different animal though. The game is very modular allowing you to define, through dice and descriptors just about anything you want, and resolve the situation using the mechanics presented.

The book is very clear about using the fiction to justify the pool creation, and that the dice themselves are representative of the 'narrative force' of the thing in the scene.

It's not a light game but it's also not a tactical crunchy game if that makes sense. I grokked it better than something like Blades in the Dark on my first reading, and I think a Blades in the Cortex game would work really, really well. There's a strong overlap in terms of narrative fiction first, but Cortex offers a bit more mechanically to support the fiction. I also feel there's something to be said about clock size being used in the GM dice pool. It's an idea at the front of my brain but I haven't worked it out yet.

That went longer than I intended. Sorry.

 

[Aldarc]

Thanks for the detailed response. it is too bad there isn't a "Fate Worlds" style book for it to help newcomers grok the system.

One of the big problems, IME, when it comes to try grokking the system is the point that F/X or magic enters into the picture. When people ask about magic in Cortex, there is the inevitable, incredibly unhelpful "it depends on what you want magic to do" answer. It's not wrong, but IME the answer tends to turn people off because the examples and guidelines provided are fairly "meh." It's the same with Fate, but there are a lot of cheap publications out there where you can see different ways people have handled it.

 

[Reynard]

One of the big problems, IME, when it comes to try grokking the system is the point that F/X or magic enters into the picture. When people ask about magic in Cortex, there is the inevitable, incredibly unhelpful "it depends on what you want magic to do" answer. It's not wrong, but IME the answer tends to turn people off because the examples and guidelines provided are fairly "meh." It's the same with Fate, but there are a lot of cheap publications out there where you can see different ways people have handled it.

Does Cortex have a free license and/or SRD, or plans for them?

 

[Haplo781]

There a couple of decent Cortex related game system podcasts, not actual plays. The system is customizeable in a way that many tool kit systems aren't. To the point where there isn't a even a default set of attributes.

The GM defines the traits and trait sets he wants to use for the given game/campaign. They can be defined in a way that is similar to traditional games, Str, Dex, Con etc. or you could define the traits you wanted to use as something like affiliations or powers, or relationships or distinctions Your dice pool is based on the traits the fiction invokes. The recommendation is to use three separate trait sets. Everything in Cortex is defined by a die value (like Savage Worlds in that respect)

You might define a D&D game with traits sets for Attributes, Class, Background, and Skills for instance. So Attribute: str, dex, con, int, wis , cha. Class: Fighter, Wizard, Rogue. Background: Soldier, Blacksmith, Noble and so on.

When you build a dice pool the relevant dice are placed into your pool and you roll against a DC the GM has rolled via his own assembled pool.

An example, and I may mess this up. Our fighter wants to kick down a door. His Strength (d6) , and Athletics (d6) skill come into his pool. Maybe Fighter (D8) does or doesn't you'd want to justify in the fiction, but if his background was as a carpenter (d4) sure you could add it. So our guy is rolling d6+d6+d4 in this case. The Door is rated at a say a D6 by itself but it's swollen over time (d6) so the GM DC pool is d6+d6. GM rolls a 7, fighter rolls a 6+5+2. Fighter picks 2 of them and keeps the third for an FX die.

FX die are used to proc other effects. There's a hitch (complication) in the dice when a 1 is rolled in the pool.

In any case I probably messed of that up from memory. That said, the system is neat. I like it more than Fate. It's kind of a different animal though. The game is very modular allowing you to define, through dice and descriptors just about anything you want, and resolve the situation using the mechanics presented.

The book is very clear about using the fiction to justify the pool creation, and that the dice themselves are representative of the 'narrative force' of the thing in the scene.

It's not a light game but it's also not a tactical crunchy game if that makes sense. I grokked it better than something like Blades in the Dark on my first reading, and I think a Blades in the Cortex game would work really, really well. There's a strong overlap in terms of narrative fiction first, but Cortex offers a bit more mechanically to support the fiction. I also feel there's something to be said about clock size being used in the GM dice pool. It's an idea at the front of my brain but I haven't worked it out yet.

That went longer than I intended. Sorry.

Effect dice are one of the cooler aspects of the system. Let's say you're attacking a bad guy, rolling 2d8+d10 and get a 6, a 4, and a 5 respectively. The GM only rolled a 9 for the bad guy's defense, so your 6+4 from the 2d8 is sufficient to get a success. You then choose the d10 as your effect die, inflicting d10 physical Stress.

The bad guy now has a d10 of physical Stress, which anyone rolling against him gets to use in their dice pool. And if you get another d10 or better effect die, you can step up his Stress to a d12.

Any type of Stress that gets increased beyond a d12 means the character is Stressed Out and no longer able to participate in the current scene unless an effect reduces their Stress.