Thomas Shey
Legend
You can get a fairly close approximation of Classic (which I quite liked) with the right toggles in Prime. It mostly lacks some of the ancillary rules.
Tell Me About Cortex Prime
You can get a fairly close approximation of Classic (which I quite liked) with the right toggles in Prime. It mostly lacks some of the ancillary rules.
Well, GURPS largely adds subsystems - the basic stats and mechanics remain the same, which is one of its limitations. The core game mechanic does, say, gritty dark ages knights well, but doesn't end up doing high-powered superheroes well, because you can't easily scrub the grit out of the system. IMHO< of course.
Oh, I can see the point, largely because, mechanically, they are highly similar, as they all use the same root.
This is why I come to prefer things like Fate and Cortex Prime for "generic" systems - those aren't worried so much about the tactical use of mechanics, and instead lean into the player working out how their abilities fit in the narrative, which does a lot to make sure they feel less generic, at the cost of tactical depth.
You've got a lot of good discussion going on here, but I'll add my take for whatever it's worth, on a few of the questions (though not all):
The general system is opposed dice rolls. Keep two and add them together to get a Total, keep a third to use as an Effect. Often, the players must "beat it to yeet it": they have to beat the opposed roll's Total, not just match it. The Effect die rates the degree of success/amount of damage/severity of inflicted complications or stress. There's a tight Plot Point economy and certain traits that key off them, allowing you to manipulate these basic rules: keep more dice for the Total; keep additional Effect dice; increase a die (d6 to d8, d8 to d10, etc.) in specific circumstances; use a d4 instead of the original die rating in order to gain a Plot Point. Etc. etc.
The complexity level can be pretty minimal (not adding much to the above paragraph), or considerably more complex, depending on what options you add. If you can peruse old reviews on past Cortex games, my opinion is that Leverage and Dragon Brigade (still available on DriveThruRPG) were very close to the "rules lite" end of the scale, whereas Marvel Heroic (and the later "Fantasy Heroic" that was in the Cortex Hacker's Guide and had a few 3rd party releases) were pretty complex. I'd still say at most it was rules-medium: close-ish to D&D 5e's core rules, but nowhere close to Pathfinder 1e or Anima Beyond Fantasy, etc. Smallville was somewhere in-between, but arguably maybe leans towards Marvel Heroic.
Tales of Xadia is interesting: the quick play rules are closer to the simple side, but the full rules have a lot of neat little options that add up to a more medium-crunch. Hammerheads -- available free on CortexRPG.com -- is pretty lite, but not quite as lite as Leverage.
Confused? Sorry. That's how a modular game like this works.
It's easy to learn IF YOU START SIMPLE. The most common mistake I see as the Reddit mod for the unofficial Cortex sub is that people dive in and say they want to make characters with 7 traits, use the full suite of Doom Pool + Crisis Pool options alongside every type of GMC (the Cortex term for NPCs), and they want to entirely re-work or bolt on some kind of non-Cortex subsystem for something like magic, equipment, or whatever. I'm exaggerating a little, but not much.
Like any rules-medium game, and most relationships, I think you gotta take it slow. Hammerheads and the Tales of Xadia primer are still available free, use the current chassis, and are pretty straightforward, all-in-one packages. You don't have to read the Cortex Prime Game Handbook to grok them: just read and play them on their own. Watch one of the (many!) official Cortex playthroughs on YouTube. The game plays WAY SIMPLER than it reads. Diving into the deep end on an entirely modular system is only good for a very specific type of person, and most people don't learn that way. It'd be like deciding to become a website developer one day and starting with an Advanced Python course. Sure, there's some genius that can do it, but there's an easier way.
I've posted a few simple hacks on my website, and the subreddit maintains a spreadsheet of something like 50+ games, all in various stages of development and various levels of complexity. I still suggest starting with Hammerheads or ToX's Primer for simplicity, but if you want a glimpse at the breadth of the game and something like 20+ takes on "how do you do magic in Cortex," it's all there.
Leverage, may be your missing game.
RivetGeekWil
Lead developer Tribes in the Dark
The license is not the same for Cortex Prime. Here is the current non-commercial (community) license:
If you want to sell a Cortex game, you need to acquire a commercial license. To do that, you'd need to contact Direwolf Digital, but for the moment I think the licensing is paused as they get everything settled from acquiring Cortex.
Leverage was developed at the same time as Smallville as the first of the "Cortex Plus" games. So it's not considered part of the Classic games.
The missing game was the first iteration of Demon Hunters (not the one with the "Comedy of Terrors" postscript).
Thomas Shey
Legend
No, I'd tend to agree, but I'm not actually sure any base mechanic doesn't put in some of that. As the example at hand, I think the "make a pool and pull out the best three" in Cortex makes some assumptions about different things contributing to success in a way that may not always be desirable. Which doesn't mean the GURPS core structure doesn't do what you say here, because it absolutely does (at least form where I sit).
I'm not sold on that; if in practice, resolution systems for a system handling of paranormal abilities are similar, to me the the lack of distinction in mechanics makes it seem even more similar; narrative conceits can only do so much heavy lifting.
RivetGeekWil
Lead developer Tribes in the Dark
With Cortex it's not just narrative (although I don't agree with "narrative conceits", especially in a fiction first game - narrative is powerful and does most of the heavy lifting). I'll illustrate by listing a number of ways you can do magic in Cortex, none of which will likely make sense if you don't know the tools involved, and by far not exhaustive.
- As Distinction only
- As SFX attached to a trait set
- As a Talent (SFX not attached to a trait set)
- A trait among other traits in a trait set such as Attributes, Skills, Roles, Affiliations, or even approaches (which are not actually in Cortex Prime, but work phenomenally well)
- As a power trait set of its own
- As Abilities
- As Resources
- As a signature asset (which is how Tales of Xadia does spells)
- Added to a character's pool like any other trait when they try to do something (i.e., no rolling to "cast spells")
- Using rolls to create magic (such as creating assets).
- Plot points as cost
- Stress or complications as cost
- Some other cost (trait statements, growth dice, other traits being affected, etc).
- A combination of two or more of the above
The Sorcery power trait is the only "generic" way to do magic in Cortex. And power traits don't normally exist outside of a set of other power traits, so it's not like you're going to just use that for magic in your game (considering it can only be used to create assets). You have to work out how magic works in your Cortex build, and it's not going to be "generic".
EDIT: And to illustrate I'll give you two very different magic systems, pulled out of thin air:
There's nothing generic about these. The first uses three mods (Relationships with trait statements, Growth, and Shaken/Stricken). The second uses Distinctions, the Session Records mod, and growth.
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Thomas Shey
Legend
Note my comment was a general one, not specifically about Cortex (though I'm not sold its still not to some extent true there, specifically when trying to have a setting that has more than one paranormal system present at a time). It was much more a comment about, say, Fate. Cortex may have only one basic mechanic (roll a bunch of dice and pick 2/3) but there are tools of applicability that more schematic systems don't have (but I'm also going to stand by my statement about narrative conceits--I consider those necessary but not by themselves sufficient).
RivetGeekWil
Lead developer Tribes in the Dark
The fun thing here is that there isn't only one basic mechanic. There's also the add all the dice mod, where you total all of the dice. But I can totally have multiple different "power systems" in Cortex that work and feel different at a fundamental "Stupid Dice Tricks" level. Tales of Xadia almost has this, because dark magic uses slightly different rules.
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