New Hex Girls

Ok.  I am such a geek.  But you all know that by now.

Well there is a new Scooby Doo cartoon out now, Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated.  I am not completely sold on it yet, but my boys like it, so really that is all that is important.  Today though, I watched a new one with them featuring the Hex Girls, "In Fear of the Phantom".  Obviously I wanted to watch, but had to get the morning prep done before school/work first.

Here is what I saw.  The visual style has changed a bit and Dusk has a new voice, but all in all I like the new look.  So people online are complaining (shock! I know) about the changes (they are rockers, they should update their style every so often, and excuse me, but Luna was always African-American, or at least bi-racial).

Thorn looks mostly the same, I like the new looks for Dusk and Luna, very Goth-Punk and neo-Victorian. In fact I might adopt this as their new look in either the "Season 2" game I am thinking about for Cartoon Action Hour, or as a new Season 3 game.  No ideas are hitting me just yet.

I won't go into the episode too much.  It was cool to see Luna playing bass.  Dusk also looks older now.  I do plan on using the Hex Girls more often in my games, even if it just as a background thing in a more serious game and I still like the idea of using them in Witch Girls Adventures and Cartoon Action Hour.

To tie in this episode, I might have a nod in Season 2 to a single, "Trap of Love" that was recorded live with another lead singer, the 4th (or is it 5th) Hex Girl, "Crush"; really Daphne in disguise (looks like bondage gear to me, but hey) to lure out the episode's bad guy.

So yeah, some new stuff to add to a game.  My kids were very excited to see the Hex Girls again and I am sure it is only a matter of time (and repeated viewings) before they ask me to make them a CD with the new songs on it.

Links
Clips, Screencaps: http://www.comicvine.com/news/scooby-doo-mystery-incorporated-in-fear-of-the-phantom-clips/141930/
And of course Danny's Hex Girls site, http://www.angelfire.com/goth2/thehexgirlscoven.com/

Cortex, Part 6 - Final Thoughts

I have spent some time with Cortex and Cortex Plus.  I like the games, they are a nice mix of elements I enjoy in games.  Cortex does not give me anything new, say over Unisystem or Savage Worlds, but it is a nice presentation of ideas in a different way.  Cortex Plus is new and has a very interesting element to it.  Character creation though takes a long time and is typically only suited for groups who know who and what their characters are about already.  Sometimes you want to discover these things in game.

I will discussing Cortex Plus more as I move over to super-hero games.

Cortex, Part 5 - Cortex ++

So I am continuing to spend some quality time with Cortex and Cortex Plus.    One thing though has become very apparent; the only proper way to build a character in Cortex Plus is in a group.  You need the input of others in order to determine what it is your character will do.  This is a cool thing, but doesn't work well in all situations.  For example, me working by myself to stat up some characters on my own in far more work.

When putting together the cast for The Hallows, one thing became very obvious.  Rachel is the star of the show, the others support her.  This is perfect for a book, a less than perfect situation for a game like Smallville.  While playing some D&D with my boys this weekend I thought it would also be cool to try the Cortex Plus system with their D&D 3.0 characters.  They could tell me how they all reacted to each other, how their actions played on each other and what their goals were.  Not bad for an 11 and 7 year old.  This got me thinking.

Could you apply this system of social interaction to any game?

I think the answer here is yes.  The other question is, would you want too?  This one depends on your group.
For most of the D&D-like games I am in, I am thinking not.  But certainly I could see doing this in a Unisystem game (Unisystem Plus?) and I know some of the people on the Cartoon Action Hour yahoo list are discussing this very idea.  But as it turns out there is a game that is absolutely PERFECT for this.

Cortex.

Cortex in it's classic version (BSG, Supernatural) is a great game as I have mentioned in the past.  It is lacking something though to separate it away from the likes of Unisystem and Savage Worlds.  Cortex Plus is a great system that does some very different things, but sometimes that high level of social interaction between characters needs to take a back seat to beating the crap out of some monsters.  The two systems share a base and they have many of the same design elements in place.  What they need then is to be merged.  This gives you the best of both worlds.

Cortex ++ ("Cortex Plus Plus", like C++) combines the best of both games into a cohesive whole.  It has the same base character development as Supernatural or the Core, along with the added Social Development dynamic of Cortex Plus.   Some of the points might need to be tweaked a bit, ad this would make the character sheet a minimum of 2 pages.  But it is something I would like to see and try out.  Players would start with a concept, stat out their characters per the points given by the GM (basic stats only) and then everyone would come together for the first session to work out the details and the social interactions.

This would provide multiple levels of play and interaction.

I want to provide some write-ups this week of some characters both as Cortex Plus characters and as Cortex ++ characters just to see how it would work.

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

To get  20% off all products from these publishers:

A Terrible Idea

Aethereal Forge

Bailey Records

Crucifiction Games

Dream Pod 9

Fantasy Games Unlimited

Final Redoubt Press

Gold Rush Games

Goodman Games

Highmoon Games

Morbidgames

OtherWorld Creations

Palladium Books

Rogue Games

RPG Objects

Savage Mojo

Tricky Owlbear

Vigilance Press

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.