Tag: cortex prime (Page 1 of 3)

The Future of Cortex RPG: Marketplaces and Licensing

Updated 7/30/2024: Dire Wolf has released the Tales of Xadia Premium Dice Sets, announcing them just ahead of GEN CON 2024. I ordered all three sets on that Saturday and received shipping info first thing Monday!

The Cortex system has had a complex journey, passing through several owners. Originally developed by Margaret Weis Publishing, the game mechanics were licensed to lead designer Cam Banks, then sold to Fandom, and finally to Dire Wolf Digital (DWD) after Fandom exited the tabletop roleplaying industry. This tumultuous history has created challenges and opportunities for DWD, particularly in the areas of community marketplaces and licensing for content creators.

The Cortex Prime Game Handbook is renowned for being a versatile “LEGO set” of rules that allows players to design their own game experiences. Award winning, even. This modularity makes it comparable to systems like GURPS and Fate, yet unique in its lack of a singular “core game.” Unlike Fate, which has a permissive license encouraging extensive modifications, Cortex currently lacks such a framework, limiting its appeal primarily to game designers, but not just them, specifically ones who aren’t looking to become content creators themselves—a potentially very small audience in the heavily DIY roleplaying game industry.

Let’s talk about the vision versus the state of the game, and then consider the future of Cortex, all in terms of marketplaces and licenses.

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How to Revive Cortex Prime – An Open Letter to Dire Wolf Digital

Updated 7/30/2024: Dire Wolf has released the Tales of Xadia Premium Dice Sets, announcing them just ahead of GEN CON 2024. I ordered all three sets on that Saturday and received shipping info first thing Monday!

In August 2022, Dire Wolf Digital (DWD) acquired the Cortex RPG from Fandom, including the Cortex Prime Game Handbook and Tales of Xadia: The Dragon Prince Roleplaying Game. Despite this transition, the game remains alive, but in need of revitalization. A dedicated and vocal fanbase remains active on the Cortex RPG official Discord, and meanwhile, the larger tabletop industry hasn’t moved on either, despite some fans’ fears. In fact, Cortex is still widely discussed and recommended across forums and social media. It has garnered hours of content and hundreds of thousands of views in the past few years, even as DWD has remained silent on its future. New products are still being launched as recently as last week (June 2024).

A deep dive into the current state of Cortex RPG, conducted with the help of dedicated fans, revealed several strategies to change the perception of Cortex as an under-supported game. These ideas can help Cortex achieve the potential Fandom saw when they purchased it in 2019.

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Organize Your Cortex Prime Sessions with This Session Tracker

The Cortex RPG has a bunch of really fantastic tools already available for it in terms of character sheet creators, dice rollers that account for various SFX, and even official tools for Tales of Xadia: The Dragon Prince Roleplaying Game. As I’ve been running many Marvel Heroic Roleplaying campaigns over the years, I’ve found I needed something a little more customized for managing my game sessions.

When running games virtually, I relied on Cortexatron for most of the dice aspects, as well as a shared Google Drawing where my players and I could quickly copy-paste in character images or make little “tiles” for tracking stress, complications, scene distinctions, and other things. But when I played in-person, this setup translated to a lot of whiteboard use, and/or writing things on post-it notes or index cards and throwing them in the center of the table.

Over time, I was able to develop something that works equally as well online (in the form of a Google Sheet) or in-person, in the form of a printed out page of the Google Sheet. Although heavily geared towards running Marvel Heroic-style games, I’ve incorporated some updated rules references from the Cortex Prime Game Handbook, and optimized it to be easily editable for different trait sets or the use of other mods.

Cortex Prime Superheroic Event Tracker (PDF)

Cortex Prime Superheroic Event Tracker (Google Sheet)
– Make sure to select “make a copy” to save your own version to Google Drive and start editing!

Some basic assumptions that go into it, in case you want to understand what to change based on Cortex mods you plan to use:

  • It uses action order hand-off initiative, so you simply check the box in the “Init” column next to a PC or GMC when they act, and erase those boxes at the top of a new round.
  • Scenes and Acts are defined in Marvel Heroic, but are pretty much the same as Scenes and Sessions in Cortex Prime.
  • It assumes stress and milestone XP are used, but those could easily be replaced by complications and slightly different notes on growth, respectively.
  • The plot points section is correct for Cortex Prime.
  • The doom pool section is correct for Cortex Prime, but also includes a couple Marvel Heroic-specific mods.
  • Both the PC and GMC areas allow you to track stress, complications, and assets. There are also sections for scene-wide distinctions, complications, and assets or SFX.
  • Both the PC and GMC areas have a “Random” column, with light shading to denote different die sizes, d4 through d12. If you ever need to randomly determine the target or recipient of something, use this!

What do you think? Need any help modding the sheet for your game? Drop a comment below or contact me!

Cortex Con 2023 Nov 3-5 Online – Game Registrations Are Open

Gamers everywhere are invited to join the world’s first online convention devoted to the Cortex tabletop RPG system, including Cortex Prime as well as other flavors such as Cortex Plus, Cortex Classic, and the recent free intro version, Cortex Lite! This fully virtual, fan-driven event runs November 3rd, 4th, and 5th, 2023!

Read on for more details!

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The Cortex Prime Hack Database Features Nearly 100 Fan-Made Cortex Games

Coinciding with the (new-to-me!) release of the Cortex Directory which features official and pro/semi-pro published Cortex games, I’ve turned the amazing Cortex Hack Database by Kamala Arroyo into a website where you can sort, find, and submit your own hacks!

Check it out here.

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