Cortex: The Hex Girls

Given yesterday's post, this seemed like the logical choice really.

So I am working out some ideas for a Third Season of the Hex Girls.  No ideas yet, but I thought I would try them out in Cortex after already stating them up in Unisystem, Witch Girls Adventures and Cartoon Action Hour 2.

Still sticking with the same idea here; this is Scooby-Doo in reverse.  The Hex Girls tour all over performing gigs and fighting various supernatural threats.  The monsters are real, but most everyone thinks they are people in masks or special effects and the like.

For a change of pace I used the "Mystic Arts" magic system found in Demon Hunters.  Demon Hunters has a lot in common with Scooby-Doo and would make for a more Scooby-Doo like game than say Supernatural would.  For Willow and Tara I used the magic system out of the Core book.

Thorn

AKA Sally McKnight
Agility: d6
Strength: d6
Vitality: d6
Alertness: d8
Intelligence: d6
Willpower: d10

Life Points: 16
Initiative: d8 + d8
Endurance: d6 + d10
Resistance: d6 + d6
Move: 15
Innate Def: d6
Dodge: d6

Traits
Allure d4
Initiate of the Mystic Arts d2
Talented d6 (Guitar, Singing)

Complications
Idealist d4
Superstitious d2
Insatiable Curiosity d6

Skills
Artistry d6
- Poetry d8
- Writing d10
Craft d6
Discipline d4
Influence d4
Knowledge d6
- Folklore d8
- Occult d10
Performance d6
- Guitar d12 + d6 (Talent)
- Singing d10 + d6 (Talent)
- Stage Magic d8
Tech d2

Mystic Arts: Witchcraft d6
- Alteration d8
- Defensive d8
- Detection d8
- Offensive d8

Not completely different than previous stats, but a good reflection of her say Post Season 1.

Luna

AKA Kim Moss
Agility: d6
Strength: d6
Vitality: d6
Alertness: d8
Intelligence: d8
Willpower: d8

Life Points: 14
Initiative: d8 + d6
Endurance: d6 + d8
Resistance: d6 + d6
Move: 15
Innate Def: d6
Dodge: d6

Traits
Allure d4
Initiate of the Mystic Arts d2
Talented d6 (Keyboards, Bass)

Complications
Idealist d2
Glory Hound d2 (wants the Hex Girls to be a number 1 rock band)
Duty, to the Band d6  (Luna lives for the band)

Skills
Artistry d6
- Poetry d10
- Writing d12
Craft d4
Discipline d6
Influence d4
Knowledge d6
- Music Business d8
- Occult d8
Performance d6
- Bass d10 + d6 (Talent)
- Guitar d10
- Keyboards d10 + d6 (Talent)
Tech d2

Mystic Arts: Witchcraft d6
- Alteration d8
- Defensive d8
- Detection d8

This Luna is still more focused on the band and what they can do with it rather than the mystical powers they all have.  Why does her skin appear darker here than in previous posts?  Easy, she has stopped wearing the "vampire" make-up.  It also looks like they have all dropped the fake fangs her father made.

Dusk

AKA Muffy St. James
Agility: d8
Strength: d6
Vitality: d8
Alertness: d8
Intelligence: d6
Willpower: d6

Life Points: 14
Initiative: d8 + d8
Endurance: d6 + d8
Resistance: d8 + d8
Move: 15
Innate Def: d8
Dodge: d8 + d6

Traits
Allure d2
Initiate of the Mystic Arts d2
Talented d2 (Drums, Guitar)
Wealthy d2

Complications
Crude d4
Glory hound d2
Rebellious d6

Skills
Artistry d6
- Writing d8
Athletics d6
Covert d4
Influence d2
Knowledge d6
- Occult d8
Performance d6
- Drums d10 + d2 (Talent)
- Guitar d10 + d2 (Talent)
- Singing d8
- Survival d2
- Tech d4

Mystic Arts: Witchcraft d6
- Alteration d8
- Defensive d8
- Obscuring d8
- Offensive d10

This Dusk looks older.  I would say here she is more mature now, less of the party girl (although she still has it in her) and has finally come to terms with her rich, yuppie parents.  Her magic is more attack focused that Luna's.

"Crush"

Better known to you and I as Daphne Blake in a Goth Cheerleader outfit. (That phrase will increase my hits for this post by at least 20%!) In the episode "In Fear of the Phantom" she became a Hex Girl so she could draw out the Phantom, but in the process wrote a song about how she feels about Fred.

This magic system is more skill based, so in some respects it shares that with the WitchCraft RPG.  I think it would work fine for a Hex Girls like game, but not for say a Charmed RPG. Might need to look a bit deeper.

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.

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