Tell Me About Cortex Prime

[Reynard]

I feel like it is possible for a rules system to be too much of a toolkit, and the descriptions of Coretex Prime here suggest it may be. By asking the player to develop something as fundamental as the trait/ability/skill/whatever system, the designers are revealing an expectation that those players are already familiar with the system more broadly. Not a great assumption if all your other games are out of print. Even Fate, which is sounds like there are at least some developmental similarities with Cortex, doesn't ask you to make up basics like stats (although it does allow you to do so).

 

[Umbran]

I feel like it is possible for a rules system to be too much of a toolkit, and the descriptions of Coretex Prime here suggest it may be.

Any statement of the form "X is too much of Y," are incomplete. The full statement would be "X is too much of Y for some specific intent, goal, or use."

Cortex Prime is too much of a toolkit for what? For the casual gamer to pick up and play the same evening? Sure. No argument. Too much of a toolkit to be attractive to folks who want to do some design and implementation on their own? Most certainly not! Too much of a toolkit for a D&D GM who has a set of houserules that require their own binder? Again, certainly not.

By asking the player to develop something as fundamental as the trait/ability/skill/whatever system

It asks the GM, specifically, to do that. Not every player. Though, talking about it with the players is something they suggest you can do.

...the designers are revealing an expectation that those players are already familiar with the system more broadly. Not a great assumption if all your other games are out of print.

So, no. The book doesn't leave you hanging there. There's chapters on what kind of stats you can use, and how you might make these choices to match the genre you want to play, how to build the setting, and three examples (that just happen to be in line with some of their previous games that they no longer have license to print).

Passing judgment on the thing without familiarity is maybe not a great idea.

 

[Reynard]

Passing judgment on the thing without familiarity is maybe not a great idea.

I mean, I literally asked for impressions from those familiar with it in order to make a decision about whether I should invest time and/or money in learning the game. I don't know how that isn't "a great idea." That's what asking for insight is for, no?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, the same can be said for the system as a whole - Nobody ever claimed that Leverage was a game of deep or complex tactical choices.

While true, often things like the Marvel game actually did have some in that area, specifically because of powers. The most meaningful choices in the mechanics were generally in SFX usage.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think we may be reaching a point in game design when we can consider differentiating between "toolkit" and "generic".

GURPS and Savage Words we might consider "generic" systems.

Cypher System and Cortex Prime (and possibly Fate - that's a conversation) are outright toolkits.

Like, Cortex Prime doesn't even give you a fixed set of attributes/stats to use. "Some assembly required," so to speak.

There's an argument, but I think there's matters of degree possible, too. You can have parts of a system hardcoded and parts that are toggleable (and I'm not sure where to place systems like GURPS that have a very large number of optional rules you can swap in and out at need).

But if there's one area a lot of otherwise assemble-to-suit systems tend to not turn into a construction system, its paranormal abilities because unless the system is very schematic its hard, and often people complain that if you do make a power building system (like Hero or EABA have) that it makes everything in powers feel generic (that is, magic feels like psionics feels like super powers). I don't agree with them, but then its not about me.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, I literally asked for impressions from those familiar with it in order to make a decision about whether I should invest time and/or money in learning the game. I don't know how that isn't "a great idea." That's what asking for insight is for, no?

From what I've seen, individual Cortex games usually define the attributes and whatnot based on genre needs. But the design allows the Firefly RPG and Maevel Superheros to use different rules while running on the same engine elegantly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I feel like it is possible for a rules system to be too much of a toolkit, and the descriptions of Coretex Prime here suggest it may be. By asking the player to develop something as fundamental as the trait/ability/skill/whatever system, the designers are revealing an expectation that those players are already familiar with the system more broadly. Not a great assumption if all your other games are out of print. Even Fate, which is sounds like there are at least some developmental similarities with Cortex, doesn't ask you to make up basics like stats (although it does allow you to do so).

I only think that's true if they don't walk you through with examples, which Cortex Prime does. And you aren't developing it completely ad-hoc, there's a limited subset of kinds of attributes and such they tell you how to make, its just the specifics you decide at the end.

I don't think this would work with a game with a less abstract approach to how resolution is generally done, but since the vast majority of Cortex resolution can be baked down to "roll a bunch of dice and take the best three" (this, in the end, was kind of the problem I had with my attempt at it), you're not working in a completely blank space.

 

[Blue]

I feel like it is possible for a rules system to be too much of a toolkit, and the descriptions of Coretex Prime here suggest it may be. By asking the player to develop something as fundamental as the trait/ability/skill/whatever system, the designers are revealing an expectation that those players are already familiar with the system more broadly. Not a great assumption if all your other games are out of print. Even Fate, which is sounds like there are at least some developmental similarities with Cortex, doesn't ask you to make up basics like stats (although it does allow you to do so).

It doesn't ask the player to decide those at all. If the DM wants to use it as a toolkit, it is asking them to decide it for the type of game they want. With plenty of support what the various modules and options mean. Or you can play a game already designed with the toolset, I believe the base book comes with three.

 

[Umbran]

I mean, I literally asked for impressions from those familiar with it in order to make a decision about whether I should invest time and/or money in learning the game. I don't know how that isn't "a great idea." That's what asking for insight is for, no?

There's insight on the general nature of the thing, and then there's insight on the practicals. You seemed to be asking about the first, but seemed to be making a judgement on the second.

So, the fact that the GM needs to choose stats got raised - you got to the idea that prior knowledge of earlier games was necessary, before we got to how you do that, or whether the current game gives you guidance. It does. If you know what genre you are aiming for, it isn't some weird, esoteric thing.

 

[aramis erak]

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.

The only things missing from your description are the difference between Plus and Prime, and Effect Dice...
Effect Dice:
When creating a trait (including damage in ranked damage modes), the size of the trait is the size (number of sides) of one of the remaining non-1, non-kept dice. Since the comparison to the opposed roll (almost all flavors use opposed rolls most of the time) is after the keep decision, one may opt to keep a higher die out of the kept pair to be able to do bigger damage.

In Firefly, this only happens for damage when one spends a plot point to not be taken out by a single hit; a variety of other situations it's suitable to use for created resource traits.

As for the differences between Cortex Plus and Cortex Prime... Essentially 2.0 and 2.1. The pre-setup flavors of Cortex Plus are a variety of different adaptations: Smallworld, Leverage, Firefly, Marvel Heroic RP, and the Cortex Plus Hackers Guide. Dragon Brigade was in development, but I don't think it was released.

Prime is, to my knowledge, not in custom use for anything I've found - the Cortex Prime core is, like the Cortex Plus Hacker's Guide, a toolkit. He-Man is slated, may be out.

Cortex Classic is a wholly different approach, more traditional... 1d(attribute) & 1d(skill), roll and total. Plot points can add extra dice, and it's still total all rolled. This includes BSG, Serenity, Sovereign Stone, Supernatural, and the Cortex RPG. (I think I'm missing one.)