Cortex, Part 4 - Building your Cast

The Smallville version of Cortex Plus has an excellently detailed character creation method.  If you , like me, love to develop characters  for a game then this a very cool thing.  The trouble is though you really need a good idea who your characters are, what the game is going to be and how the Players will work together.  This is great for 99% of the groups out there, but for me, trying this out by myself, it will take some more work.
So I have to play the part of both player and GM for this.  Come up with the world, the setting and the characters.

I am going to have to cheat then.

I need a world and a cast.  I want to use five characters since I like the way dynamic would work, and I like the visual appeal for the diagrams.  Here is the diagram I am going to use.

So here are my choices.

"Sunnydale"
A Season 5 game set in a similar, but not quite the same, cast in a similar town.
Characters would be Willow, Tara, Buffy, Xander and Anya.  Focus on the relationships.  Maybe even have Xander sleep with Buffy once just stir the shit a bit.

"The Hallows"
Using the characters from Kim Harrison's Hallows/Rachel Morgan series. I would pretty much run it as is.  This one actually has a lot of potential.  The main cast has five characters, and all have very complicated relationships that range from utter loathing to love to love/hate.  So I would include Rachel, Ivy, Jenks, Trent and Algaliarept.

Yeah I like that.  I think I'll use The Hallows characters.  Plus it gives me a nice collection of supernaturals to deal with: a witch, a vampire, a pixie, an elf and a demon.  Sounds like fun.  Here is my new chart then.

Not all the details are there yet.  Obviously I want to detail the relationships more.
So obvious ones first, Ivy LOVES Rachel, but Rachel doesn't feel the same way.  Jenks is the business partner of Ivy and Rachel, and is Rachel's best friend.  Algaliarept has alternately wanted to kill, bed, kill and now teach Rachel.  He has also bent sent to kill Trent and Trent and Rachel both thought the other summoned him.  Al has a lot of Power, Trent does too.  Rachel finds often that Power gets her into trouble.

I'll need to get into more detail of course.

More later.

Cortex, Part 3 - Cortex Plus

So everything I have told you is wrong. Or rather, everything I have told so far about Cortex is fine, but it does not cover what is going on in the newest Cortex game, Smallville.

Now a few things to get out of the way first and foremost. I have never watched Smallville really. I saw an episode way back when because it had some witches in it and it was when Clark learned he was vulnerable to magic, and I tried to catch the Zatanna episode, but my DVR took a nap and it didn't happen. So I can't judge this game on the merits of how well or not it emulates its source. What I can so though is judge it on how well it emulates young adult drama, with a supernatural/paranormal/super twist. In that case we could be talking about almost any show on WB/UPN/CW, and many of the ones on Fox too.

So what is the deal with Smallville anyway?

Well the biggest thing is the character development which according to the book will take your first session. Now let me pause here a bit. I loves me some character creation. I have pages of character notes on D&D characters and that is not counting what I have on characters for other systems. So I can dig this sort of interactive character development, but will everyone else? This feels rather indie for a mainstream license. I am going to roll with it all the same and see what it does for me. Granted my doing it will be a tad artificial since it will be just me at the moment.

Now this new interactive character development does pose one issue; you need to have a really good idea of what you want your series to do and who is going to be in it. This is the same issue that Cartoon Action Hour has; it might make a pick-up game a bit harder to do.

So how is it different? Well. There are no abilities or skills. How much stronger is Clark than Chloe? Don't know. Is Lex smarter than Brainiac? No idea. But it doesn't matter either. Clark and Chloe are not going to be arm wrestling and Lex and Brainiac are not going to be playing Trivial Pursuit against each other. But what we do have is how do Clark's actions affect Chloe, or Lois, or Lex. How can he do what he feels is right. So instead of Attribute + Skill +/- Assets we have Drives (Values + Relationships) + Assets. You are still using the Step Die methods from the previous version of Cortex, just in a new way.

So what are these? Well Drives are what motivate you or your character. The first set are called Values. Thes are Duty, Glory, Justice, Love, Power and Truth. Each of these gets a die and a defining statement. If we go with the idea of setting a game in a theoretical "Season 5" (the default power level) then we can provide some examples. So I could look at my witches in a theoretical show called "Sunnydale" and it's Season 5. Willow would have Power at d12 with the text, "I need to be able to control the chaos around me." Tara would have Power say at d6 or d8 with the text "Power is a responsibility and one that can't be ignored." It's kind of a neat way of looking at your characters really. These Values then tell you why you are motivated to do what you do. So Willow would seek out a dangerous occult text, but Tara would caution against it.

We have Drives in Values and they affect your Relationships. The player characters are called Leads and the NPCs are "features" (though I like Guest Stars better) and how they relate to each other, friend, enemy and lover alike, are called Relationships. These are mutable obviously. These are also ranked with a die and description. So between Willow and Tara we can write "in love with". So on Willow's sheet I write under Relationships "d12 TARA is my soulmate." and similarly on Tara's "D12 WILLOW is my soulmate". Since it is Season 5 I could even write on Willow's sheet, "d8 XANDER is my best friend" or "d4 I don't like ANYA". It is bit freeform at this point since it is just me. Relationships work out best when discussed with the other players. It looks like the die value's don't have to be equal, so Clark has a d10 listed for Chloe in the book, but Chloe has a d12 for Clark. This matches reality really; not all relationships are equal.

Relationships can be with other Leads or Features (PCs and NPCs). You also can have Resources, people or things you can call on to do things.

Assets are the closest to what you could describe as "Powers" or "Qualities". In my quick read over of the rules these seemed to be the most similar to Classic Cortex. Clark has things like Super-Strength and the like. But these again are more descriptive and are not a measure of his strength per se but rather a measurement of what using his Super-Strength means to the show and to the characters around him. If an asset is not here then adding one is not too difficult really. I could see an asset like Megan Maclay's Spellbook (Magical Artifact), with the text "add d8 to Trouble to use a new spell" or bit of occult knowledge as the case may be.

All of this though is designed around the interpersonal relationships the character have with each other. It is an interesting focus for a game to be honest, and one that leads itself to certain level of tinkering. Think about it for a bit, you could take any group of characters and provide a "Cortex Plus" sheet for them as well. They would have their powers, skills and other details in Assets and then you focus on the interpersonal dynamics.

I think I should try this out. Plus a game like this needs to be tried in order to get the proper feel.

DriveThruRPG Blog Support

I keep forgetting to do this, so I'll post it now.

As a gift to you the loyal readers/followers of this blog, DriveThruRPG has given me some codes to give to you to get 20% off from some publishers.

So go to DriveThruRPG and use this code: DTRPGAugust2010BlogPCast

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A Terrible Idea

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Highmoon Games

Morbidgames

OtherWorld Creations

Palladium Books

Rogue Games

RPG Objects

Savage Mojo

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My way of saying thanks!

100 Reviews (and then some)

So tonight I hit the 100 mark for my reviews over at DriveThruRPG.
You can see them all here.

While we are at it, I also did some reviews over at Amazon and RPG.Net.
Obviously there is some overlap.

That is still a lot of games.

Willow & Tara: Cortex (Cortex Part 2)

So I am going to pull out my iconic witches again because I want to test out the magic system Cortex presently has and work through my Unisystem conversions.

Following up from yesterday's post, I decided that what Cortex does rather well is "normal people in an abnormal world" thing, with Supernatural being my Cortex game of choice for this.  This is something that Savage Worlds (out of the box) does well too, but Cortex does it a bit better in my opinion.

Let me begin with the conversions. Some of this is very similar to the Savage Worlds conversions I had done a bit back.  So I'll re-include those numbers again.

Basic Conversions
Conversions between the two systems are surprisingly easy. I say surprising, it isn't really since I feel both games appeal to the same kind of gamer and similar kinds of game worlds. Both games assume normal humans (at least at their core) and a small set of skills.

Attributes and Skills
Conversions here could not be easier. Attributes are roughly the same. Strength = Strength, Dexterity = Agility, Constitution = Vitality, Intelligence = Intelligence, Willpower = Willpower and Perception = Alertness. Even the ranges are roughly the same. 1 = d2, 2=d4, 3=d6, 4=d8, 5=d10 and 6=d12, with the proper human mins and maxs lining up. Cortex even assumes the human average to be about d6, similar to Unisystem's 3. With the point buy systems Cortex's Veteran is roughly equal then Experienced Heroes in many Unisystem games. Life points are calculated differently, so I would stick to the system used in each game rather than a full conversion between the two.

From the Unisystem perspective the lowest human score is a 1, but most heroes will have a minimum of 2 in their Attributes. For Cortex that is a d2 (rarely used in my experience) and the d4.  Again, on par with Savage Worlds. This give us this:

Unisystem	Savage Worlds	Cortex
1	d4-1	d2
2	d4	d4
3	d6	d6
4	d8	d8
5	d10	d10
6	d12	d12
7	d12+1	d12+d2
8	d12+2	d12+d4
9	d12+3	d12+d6

Success are easier in Cortex, but Cortex is scaled more like d20.  So an "Easy" Difficulty needs a 3 (which can still be botched if you roll all "1"s.)  The scaling is similar to Unisystem's Success levels, so in practice I would often adjudicate them the same way.
Cinematic Unisystem has Drama Points, Cortex has Plot Points, and they have similar uses.

Cortex does split off it's damage to Stun and Wound, round towards Stun.  This way a character can be knocked out or stunned in some cases.  I like the idea myself and it is a neat and simple way of doing things.  Not something I would use in Unisystem, but I might give it a try just to see.

Qualities, Drawbacks, Traits and Complications
Unisystem characters get Qualities and Drawbacks. Cortex characters get Traits and Complications; and they get a few of those. This is fine really when dealing with normal humans. In the core rules there are still a few to choose from and there are others in the other, licensed material cores. In this respect it is closer to Savage Worlds. All three games have some overlap here, but each has something here and there to offer the others. Demon Hunters and Supernatural can get a boost from the likes of Buffy, Angel and Ghosts of Albion, while Unisystem gamers can get a different feel for their games from Demon Hunters and Supernatural. Adding Battlestar Galactica to the mix extends this even more. Ghosts of Albion/Angel/Buffy, Supernatural and Demon Hunters all live under the same basic idea; the supernatural is real and you need to fight it, though they all differ in approach. Mixing the games up a bit would be perfect for that Urban Fantasy genre that is so popular these days, with a perfect balance of fluff and crunch and rules-lite cinematic fun. While conversions are easy, some would be harder to convert. For example, a Cortex Vampire costs d6, in Unisystem Vampires are 15 pts. Granted they are different sort of vampires. But something like a Slayer or Protector would cost quite a bit in Cortex, and for the current games they have not really appropriate. I'd have to go through all the Demon and Supernatural creation rules (in Angel and Ghosts respectively) to see if they would convert fine to Cortex.
There are not as many choices in Cortex as there are in Unisystem, but then again you are limited to how many you can have more in Cortex too.  So Qualities/Drawbacks don't always line up perfectly with Traits/Complications.

The Core book is straight forward and takes a lot of cues from Savage Worlds,  provide lots of crunch, some builds and almost no fluff.  That is fine by me really.  Makes the Core easy to read.  There are some sample "worlds" or campaigns (like you find in the True 20 book) to get you going.  IF you don't like those then there are all the other books they make.

I played Cortex for the first time a couple of Gen Con's ago and it is easy to learn on the fly, very fast and very fun.  The advantage it has over Unisystem is the more interesting (to me) probability curves of the different sized dice. d12+d6 is much more interesting than  d10 + some number + some other number.  Though even given that it still has not really replaced Cinematic Unisystem in my heart.

Willow and Tara
Ok for this time I am going to use the magic system as-is and see how things stack up. Normally I would stat them up the same year I was introduced to the game, in this case 2008.  But that puts WAY outside what Cortex could do in post "Season of the Witch" terms.  There are more details on my "seasons" here.  I think I'll still say 2008, but use slightly scaled back versions.  Parallel worlds.  Wibbly-wobbly and all.  Maybe this is the Willow and Tara that live in the same universe as Sam and Dean from Supernatural.

Tara A. Maclay
(circa 2008 game time)
Female; Age 28; Height: 5' 5"; Weight 125lbs

Agility: d4
Strength: d4
Vitality: d6
Alertness: d12 (*Tara is an empath, so I bumped this up to this level)
Intelligence:  d10
Willpower: d12

Life Points: 18
Initiative: d4 + d12
Endurance: d6 + d12
Resistance:  d6 + d6
Move: 15
Innate Def: d4
Dodge: d4 + d4

Traits
Allure d2
Animal Empathy d4
Contacts (Supernatural) d6
Enhanced Senses d10 (Empathy, The Sight) *In a Supernatural game I would make this Clairvoyant at d6 (I know not in the rules...)
Healer's Touch d2
Higher Education d6

Channeling Trait (Magic) d12 + d8
Telekinesis d12

Complications
Allergy, Shellfish d2
Erie Presence d2 (to supernaturals only)
Shy d6 (though by 2008 she has grown out of this)

Skills
Animals d6
- Riding d8
Artistry d6
- Writing d8
Athletics d4
Craft d6
- Cooking d8
Discipline d4
Drive d4
Influence d4
Knowledge d6
- Folklore d10
- Occult d12 + d6
- History d8
Medicine d4
Melee Weapons d4
Perception d6
Performance d6
- Dancing d8
- Singing d8
Science d6
- Social Sciences d10
Tech d6
Unarmed Combat d4

The magic trait is Magic.

Willow D. Rosenberg
(circa 2008 game time)
Female; Age 28; Height: 5' 3"; Weight 105lbs

Agility: d4

Strength: d4

Vitality: d6

Alertness: d10

Intelligence:  d12

Willpower: d12

Life Points: 18

Initiative: d4 + d10

Endurance: d6 + d12

Resistance:  d6 + d6

Move: 15

Innate Def: d4

Dodge: d4 + d4

Traits

Allure d4

Ambidexterity d2  

Attuned to Technology

Contacts (Supernatural, Business) d6

Enhanced Senses d10 (Lesser Sensing)

Head for Numbers d6

Talented (Computers) d6

Wealthy d8

Channeling Trait (Magic) d12 + d8

Telekinesis d12

Complications

Anger Issues d2 

Skills

Athletics dd

Craft d6

Discipline d2

Drive d4

Influence d6

Knowledge d6

- Occult d12 + d8

- History d8

Mechanic d6

Medicine d6

Melee Weapons d2

Perception d4

Science d6

- Biology d10

- Chemistry d12

Tech d6

- Computers d12 + d4

- Robotics d10  (though this would not work in a Supernatural game, in a Demon Hunters game though it would)

Unarmed Combat d4

The magic trait is Magic.

After building these I would like to give the out of the box version of the magic system a trial run again.  It would be interesting to see how everything fits together.    Stat wise I do like how they came out.  These are not starting characters and using the same ideas I used WAAAY back in the WitchCraft days I advanced them with points.  I am pleased with the results.

Of course to really try this out I have work up some more characters.  If I am going to do that then why not see how they all work together as a social group.  Sounds like the perfect time for Smallville and Cortex Plus.

Cortex, Part 1

I think it is high time I devoted some photons to Cortex.  In truth I already have with these posts:
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2009/06/supernatural-rpg.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/02/cortex-and-unisystem.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/02/magic-in-cortex-savage-worlds-and-witch.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/03/sympathy-for-succubus-part-2.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/07/savage-worlds.html (a little)
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/07/tale-of-two-supermen.html

I am going to talk about Cortex, or I guess what could now be described as "Classic Cortex".  The Cortex in Smallville and Leverage is something called "Cortex Plus".  There are more differences between Classic and Plus than there are between Classic Unisystem and Cinematic Unisystem or even between D&D 3.0 and 3.5. Enough that I want to detail them as separate systems.

Cortex has a generic book (pictured above) which is the core of the Cortex System. There are many licensed products that Margaret Weis Productions makes.  These include Supernatural, Serenity, Battlestar Galactica, and Demon Hunters. Smallville and Leverage use the new Cortex Plus system.

So what is Cortex?  Other than a system that seems to be doing a lot of TV shows?  Well I have described Cortex in the past as the love child of Unisystem and Savage Worlds.  The system is closer in feel to Unisystem and is a step-die system like Savage Worlds.

So unlike other reviews I want to hit some very specific things with Cortex.  These might sound a tad negative, but they are not really. I am just focusing on a few things here.  I do want to spend some time still talking about why I like this system.

Magic -  I have gone on about how Cortex needs a better magic system, and it does, but to be fair none of the licenses the Cortex currently has does anything near the magic you see in Buffy or Ghosts of Albion.  Supernatural and Demon Hunters, while they do have magic, are also not at that level.   I have toyed around with converting the magic system from Ghosts and even using the one from Witch Girls Adventures. While these are passable, I really think something new and excited is needed here.  For starters I would take what I learned for Ghosts and keep it simple.  I'd also want to split magic up into different types of magic.  Say like "Earth Magic" and "Diabolic", not just the descriptors I used in Ghosts, but separate "Skills", this would control the power levels some and keep things at that "human" power level that Cortex works well at.

What Book Do I Buy? - Interesting thing about Cortex.  I have never watched any of the shows they have games for.  BSG was good, but I lost interest.  Never watched Firefly (and no plans to start really).  I watched Supernatural and I loved it, but could never find the time in my days to watch the episodes I had recorded.  Same with Smallville and Leverage.  So I can't judge the books on how well they emulate their respective universes.  My gut feeling is that Supernatural is really, really damn close and so is Smallville.  But say you are new to Cortex, what should you buy?  Well...I guess I would start with, what show are you wanting to emulate?  I knew nothing of "Demon Hunters" till I signed up for it one Gen Con.  Cam Banks ran it and it was a blast!  The background is bit more silly that I normally take my modern/horror, but there is no reason at all you could not play it straight.  Supernatural is one of my favorite games presently as well.  It is a great game if you want to play normal human versus things that go bump in the night kind of game.  Actually, Supernatural is a GREAT game if you loved Chill.  If you want to play in outer space, well they have two games for that too.
Smallville, and from what I can tell Leverage, are different.  These games are for interpersonal relationships and drama, regardless of background.  Sure Clark can leap tall buildings in a single bound, but how is going to do if Lois starts filtering with him?  Some people don't like this kind of game, but personally (as a gamer and a designer) I find it fascinating! But I am getting ahead of myself...

Why do I need this if I have this? And this is a good question to ask.  Why would I play Cortex if I have Unisystem or Savage Worlds or True 20 or GURPS?   I think the answer here is people will play it because of the licenses.  This certainly worked great for  Buffy and Unisystem and it seems to working great for Cortex so far.  I think to get them to the next step is to have more products out for the "generic" rules that can be used with any book they sell.  Cortex Plus expands this and the system itself now becomes something of an interest above and beyond the license itself.  So say you are like me and you have Buffy, Chill, Ghosts of Albion, World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu and Ghostbusters; what does Supernatural give you?  Well I guess that depends.  If you are a fan of the show then you have that.  The book is one of the nicest looking RPGs I have seen in a long time. Beyond that Supernatural is about normal people.  Characters in Ghosts of Albion are not normal.  Same is true for Buffy, CoC and World of Darkness.  Chill, like I mentioned, comes the closest, but Chill is a very old system now and there are parts that are showing that age.  Supernatural + the Cortex Core Rules gives you plenty on doing a "hunter" game or even a "survivor" game.

Why I Like Cortex
I will be honest, I like Cortex.  The math geek in me loves the step die progression and the fact that you have die + die/dice to get to a success.  While my love for Unisystem know no bounds, the d10 + numbers is a bit of flat outcome. I have talked about my fondness for Supernatural already and even in re-reads I still think it holds on well.  Here is how I feel about Cortex in general.
- The system is easy to learn.  Look, I have done my tenure with tables, insane formulas and dozens of subsystems.  I don't have to do that anymore.  If game wants my attention then it needs to be simple or have a good reason for the complexity.
- The game is improving. You can track Cortex's development through it's licensed games.  Yes there were some issues with earlier games, but now I feel they have a good handle on what they want to do and how to do it.
- Cortex has some great looking books.  I know that is not the end all be all, but a lot of work, care and effort goes into producing these books.  Supernatural and Smallville in particular are two of the best looking games I have seen in a while.  Minor quibble, not enough pictures of Lenore and Zatana respectively.
- Most importantly I feel it is a system that can do more than it currently has.  The core book is presented in a very "tool box" way and I'd like to try to build something with that.

I will do some Unisystem/Cortex conversions next and talk about magic and what Cortex Plus adds to the mix.

Links
http://www.margaretweis.com/
http://cortexsystemrpg.org/

I Got Nothin'

Post Gen Con and Back to Work and getting everything done for the Fall term has left no time for blogging this week.

You could pop over to DriveThruRPG and read some of the reviews I have written I suppose.  I am up to 92 now.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_reviews.php?products_id=83081&customers_id=10748&affiliate_id=10748