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Message: <blockquote data-quote="timbannock" data-source="post: 8775511" data-attributes="member: 17913">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.</blockquote>

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