Tag: cortex prime (Page 2 of 3)

Another Simple Cortex Prime Hack – Minimum Dice, Maximum Fun

The Core of Cortex posits a really simple version of the Cortex Prime system, one that’s great for off-the-cuff sessions. It’s also simple enough for fairly young players to understand, which is an added benefit. Gaming with little kids is always a fun exercise in game design: how do you make it simple and fun, with enough “meat” to teach the little tikes some basic game play strategy?

I’ve been toying around with a simple game system spawned from a specific circumstance: I’ve got a single die of each size – d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12 (and also a d20; more on that later!) – for myself (the GM) and another set for my player(s), and that’s it. I think it may work really well and leans into some Cortex-isms that The Core of Cortex actually avoids: different die sizes, and effect dice.

You be the judge! Here’s what I’ve got:

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The Super Simple Superhero Hack for Cortex Prime

In this post I’ll briefly outline a hack for Cortex Prime. This one’s best described as:

A streamlined take on four color comic book action in Cortex Prime that remains largely compatible with Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.

These hacks are prone to change, so you’ll want to check out the Google Doc for the latest version. That said, it’s kind of neat to see how these hacks develop, so what you’ll get here is a very brief overview; only the bits needed to play, and none of the commentary. Compare and see what changed!

Without further ado, let’s check out the Super Simple Superhero Hack.

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Dramatic Investigative Mythos Horror Hack for Cortex Prime

Content Warning: Elder gods, evil cults, and all that entails!

In this post I’ll briefly outline a hack for Cortex Prime. This one’s best described as:

Cthulhu-style Mythos horror meets relationship drama…to preserve your sanity!

These hacks are prone to change, so you’ll want to check out the Google Doc for the latest version. That said, it’s kind of neat to see how these hacks develop, so what you’ll get here is a very brief overview; only the bits needed to play, and none of the commentary. Compare and see what changed!

Without further ado, let’s check out Dramatic Investigative Mythos Horror.

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Defining Your Traits in Cortex Prime and Tales of Xadia

Something that trips up players and GMs new to the Cortex RPG — and a lot of games described as “narrative” or “fiction-first” — is interpreting  traits that are purposely vague. This comes up when choosing what traits to use in a dice pool, as well as describing the outcomes of those dice rolls. Players and GMs may hold different expectations of what a trait means when it’s no more than a word or short phrase plus a die rating. Strength D8 might be fairly self-explanatory to an experienced tabletop gamer, but Liberty D8 or Divided We Stand D8 are probably far less so.

Let’s look at ways to define traits by taking a look at the concept of “narrative permissions” in game design, as well as the Statements mechanic in Cortex games, and see how they can help us out!

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Firefly Roleplaying Game: Serenity Adventures Conversions for Ghosts of the Rebellion

Reposted from neuronphaser.com

Serenity Adventures featured a handful of adventure scenarios for the Serenity Roleplaying Game published using the older version of the Cortex system (Cortex Classic) well before the new Firefly Roleplaying Game was released. In planning to run a few of the scenarios out of that book, I figured it’d be shiny to release my GMC and Boat conversions to the world for use with the Firefly Roleplaying Game.

In this article, I’ve posted the stats for the NPCs and boats featured in the adventure “Ghosts of the Rebellion.”

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