'Tales from Xadia' Dragon Prince RPG Announced

Tales of Xadia is an upcoming RPG powered by the Cortex system, based on the Netflix series The Dragon Prince. It will be published by Fandom, the company which owns D&D Beyond.

The RPG was announced during a Comic Con panel this weekend which announced four more seasons of the TV show. Tales of Xadia will "bridge" seasons 3 and 4 of the show. The game is slated for a 2021 release, with a pubic playtest preceding it.

There's an official website, with a trailer.

The Cortex system is a universal modular tabletop gaming engine. It was originally crated by Margaret Weis Productions for the Serenity roleplaying game, and has been used for various games since. Fandom, the owners of D&D Beyond, acquired the system last year.

 PRESS RELEASE

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Players can explore the ruins of Lux Aurea, try to restore the corrupt sunforge, and fight to stop the evil monstrosities they emanate from spreading. This off-screen story comes alive in both game additions and organized game events prior to the release of Season 4.

“Stories from Xadia is being prepared by Cortex, a rule system previously used in award-winning games in the Universes of wonder, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural, and more. Cortex Prime was developed by Cam Banks and is the latest version of the system. While waiting for the public game test from Stories from Xadiayou can try out the Cortex Prime rules for free with Hammerheads Spotlight game, available now at cortexrpg.com.

‘The Dragon Prince’ Tabletop RPG ‘Tales Of Xadia’ Announced

Wonderstorm and Fandom have teamed up to create a tabletop roleplaying game set in The Dragon Prince universe called 'Tales of Xadia' powered by the Cortex Prime system.

www.forbes.com

 

[MNblockhead]

One of my son's and I like the cartoon. But there is nothing in it that can't be created with D&D. I'll check it out, maybe there will be enough fluff and art to make it worth having to enjoy reading.

 

[Parmandur]

One of my son's and I like the cartoon. But there is nothing in it that can't be created with D&D. I'll check it out, maybe there will be enough fluff and art to make it worth having to enjoy reading.

Yeah, I hear that: kind of curious to see what they do here, though...

 

[Umbran]

One of my son's and I like the cartoon. But there is nothing in it that can't be created with D&D.

Perhaps. Maybe it can be done, but several elements of it (the rather Wuxia level of action, and the magic system, f'rex) would be fairly "square peg in round hole". You could do something like it, but it wouldn't be a great fit.

What matters here is how they adapt Cortex to handle the show's unique flavor. Time will tell.

 

[Cam Banks]

It's not going to be much like D&D, other than the fact that there are elves, magic, swords, and dragons.

And humans.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[MNblockhead]

I was looking at the Cortex website a bit and the system looks interesting. I could see buying a PDF to read over and try a one shot or two, but D&D scratches my fantasy itch.

 

[Aldarc]

I was looking at the Cortex website a bit and the system looks interesting. I could see buying a PDF to read over and try a one shot or two, but D&D scratches my fantasy itch.

The neat thing about Cortex, IMHO, is how one constructs a dice pool from different sources, and these sources can include more typical things like Attributes and Skills, and/or include things like Relationships, Character Values, and Affiliations.

 

[Blue]

Perhaps. Maybe it can be done, but several elements of it (the rather Wuxia level of action, and the magic system, f'rex) would be fairly "square peg in round hole". You could do something like it, but it wouldn't be a great fit.

What matters here is how they adapt Cortex to handle the show's unique flavor. Time will tell.

Agreed, the magic of the world is a large portion of the show, and it is very different than D&D magic. Plus there's a lot of D&D magic that does not seem to be present.

I can address the second part a bit. I kickstarted Cortex Prime so I've had the pleasure to read through the iterations of the rules, and I'm really impressed. It is a "generic" system in a way that GURPS or Hero System never was - in that it doesn't even make assumptions about what type of ability scores are appropriate for modelling what you are doing. Not too surprising, when you look at disparage successes like Leverage, Smallville (which got a Masterclass Design column here a few months back) and Marvel Heroic Roleplay - each is very tailored to the material.

Cam Banks and his team have really done a bang up job on Cortex Prime. I'm really excited for Tales from Xadia, and from what I've seen the system will be able to do a great job of getting the feel right.

 

[Morrus]

But there is nothing in it that can't be created with D&D.

Well, you can create anything in D&D. But different rulesets feel different to each other and create different gameplay experiences.

 

[Von Ether]

One of my son's and I like the cartoon. But there is nothing in it that can't be created with D&D. I'll check it out, maybe there will be enough fluff and art to make it worth having to enjoy reading.

Will that be "We'll house rule the game into a different system with shared words like Mutants and Masterminds" sort of D&D? Or will it be more of a "All mystical metaphysics are just window dressing for spell slots" sort of D&D.

Which is not to say that you're having badwrongfun by playing that way, but it shows how gaming comfort zones/ gaming budgets color a perspective.

And while I would be the first to say that you could look into Xadia as the early days of Dark Sun, the amount of rules versus fluff in the original Dark Sun box should tell you how much that was still a round hole concept being put into a square peg system.

If one has a very modular system that allows for a bespoke game experience, I'd say use it!