Tell Me About Cortex Prime

[Haplo781]

It's not.
Powersets don't even have direct comparisons in Leverage... Nor firefly.
Leverage is core roll of Attribute + Role + distinction. Optional gear and conditions.

Firefly has default assumption of Attribute + Skill + Distinction, with specialization adding a d6. Distinctions also carry the FX.

Marvel has distinctions, Affiliation, one to 3 powersets (with one or more powers each and often several FX), Specializations (aka skills), and often assets; up to 3 damage track complications, and no limit on other created complications/assets. But when rolling: 1 distinction, 1 affiliation, one power per powerset, one specialization, one asset, one target complication; each plot point spent allows adding another from any of those groups except affiliation. So, you don't normally get more than 4-6 dice; one can, however, wind up with pools into the 8-10 range, not counting the mob rules nor the giant critter rules.

FX refers to mechanical special rules...
In Firefly, they're attached to Distinctions. (And so are starting skills.)
In MHRP, they're attached to Power Sets.
Various effects do interesting things, such as "step down then double" a particular die - so that d10 Flight becomes 2d8, for example - or "spend a Plot Point to pick a second damage die for another target." Or even "Step up your ___ power for this action, then shut it down for the rest of the session."

It's also worth noting that Firefly lacks a doom pool. NPCs have stats and skills, and difficulties default to either opposed by NPC or opposed by 2dX (X varies by difficulty). ISTR that the doom pool is (in published Plus designs) unique to MHRP.

Smallville has a Trouble pool, which functions similarly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's not.

I thought probably not, but I was a little hesitant to say with, say, Smallville.

Looking back at my Cortex LoGaS port, it appears pools were usually Attributes, Distinctions, Specialties and often Signature Assets. Sometimes created Assets with LoGaS Powers (which don't look anything like normal Cortex constructs because I was trying to be quick and dirty with porting them over, which in retrospect wasn't my best idea).

 

[Aldarc]

Going back to the original point:

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.

IMHO, where Cortex shines as a system lies in how the character's action in the fiction is reinforced by the player assembling the dice pool through their traits and how different hacks of Cortex assemble these traits.

I ran a game of Fate Core set in a fantasy quasi-Italian Renaissance Venice. The players made great Aspects. The characters were in the service a noble house, with one of the characters being a non-inheriting son. Their noble family had acquired a small island that once belonged to monks before they were killed in a siege by a rival city-state decades prior. The family wanted to use the island for their spice smuggling operations, but it was haunted by wrath spirits attracted to the traumatic deaths of the monks. Thankfully one of the noble family's daughters was an exorcist with the church so she would perform a ritual for her family to seal the tear to the Spirit World, but she needed exotic items for the ritual. So the players went on a scavenger hunt through the city. It was a load of fun.

I wanted to try "grokking" Cortex. When I began converting this campaign setting to Cortex, I actually found myself more engaged with the game's themes. For example, the Seven Virtues that I had imagined for the setting's Church were turned into a Trait set, with players ranking how they relate to or value the Virtues. Players can go against one of their Virtues and embrace the corresponding Vice to get their die boosted for a roll but they have to step the die down afterwards. This is something I can do with Cortex that is not really a mod in Fate but it leans heavily into the themes of the setting.

So when players assemble a dice pool, they will be doing so in relation to three primary trait sets and a couple of secondary ones:

• Distinctions: Identity, Background, Ambition
• Means: Cunning, Force, Grace, Panache, Reason
• Virtues: Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, Justice, Mercy, Hope, Love
• Relationships
• Resources/Assets

I have not finished the conversion. It has been an off and on project for several years: Virtues of Valizia.

I still have the magic system to deal with, among other things, though I think that Magic will be a Resource. Resources will require making deals to replenish them, which can create further complications: i.e., "I Owe You for X, You Owe Me for Y." In the case of Magic, as magic is done via Spirits/Demons/Angels, that will mean making Faustian pacts and bargains with supernatural agents.

I could definitely do some of this with Fate, but I think that the results have been more thematically satisfying with Cortex.