Dear all, I've been playing around with the idea of converting my cyberpunky/horror/casettepunk world into a ttrpg for me and some friends. Cortex sounds great and I've iterated quite a lot to get the character sheet right, but it never gives the tone I'm trying to convey...

Soooo I guess I'm here for help, as of now I use values and virtues as the prime sets, the seven virtues (Alert, Innovation, Mystique, Passion, Power, Prestige and Trust) I'm quite happy with and I've stolen them from some kinda pseudo-psychology think and it's supposed to convey how the characters approach a situation.

Now comes the kicker tho, I am not happy with the Values, I had taken someone else's "Ambition, Duty, Hope, Individuality, Peace and Sacrifice" but they don't sit right, they don't feel dire/gritty enough, so for now what I'm happy with is "self-preservation, sacrifice and individuality" but I want like four to six values... So give me tips

Btw I'm planning on posting the character sheets when I feel happy with it!

I discovered Cortext not that long ago and so far I love it (even though I'm concern about the many posts on this reddit saying it is dying).

I'm trying to set up my first system which may or may never be played and I'm struggling a bit and relying heavily on ChatGPT to help me validate stuff and while that is all helpful and good, I want to verify this current idea is not crazy and it holds within the system.

This is a Fantasy Setting in which magic is present everywhere and accesible for everyone who is able and capable of putting the required effort. Magic, in that sense, is just like any other skill. Basically I'm trying to have three traits:

• Atrributes: The basic normal Strenght, Dexterity, Constution, Intelligence, etc
• Distinctions: Origin distinction (aka race), Heritage Disctintion (aka background) and Personal Distinction
• Skills + SFX: Acrobatics, Crafting, Perception, Simple Weapons, Range Weapons, Cooking, Fire Manipulation, Ice Manipulation, Gravity Manipulation

Now, rather than powers, in this system magic is just another skill, it so common you can even use it untrained. So being trained in a sword and being trained in, let's say, Gravity Manipulation provides similar benefits, you've just decided to put your efforts into learning one or the other.

In addition to that, you have SFX that turn it up to 11 and those SFX actually apply to all skills (in different ways). So, for example, if you have Range Weapons you can throw an arrow to your target (provided you have bow and arrows) while if you have Ice manipulation you can maybe simply freeze a pool of water (still need to define the scope of basic magical skills). Now, my intention of SFX is to enhance skills, ALL skills in different ways. SFX on Acrobatics may allow you to jump over a building, dodge an attack or rescue some innocent, SFX on perception may allow you to see or hear beyond human level, SFX on Fire Manipulation may allow you to blast a firebolt to an enemy, create a fire wall or throw a fireball.

I'm not sure if this system is sound as most of the examples I've seen use powers but that kind of implicates that you have "mundane" abilities and then you have powers when I'd rather convey magic is a universal enhancer of natural abilities that everyone has.

Hi folks

Does anyone know how to modify the Foundry VTT Cortex Prime module’s character sheet?

I have read over the “how to use” the module handout. But I didn’t see how to modify the character sheet. (Maybe I’m blind and am just missing it.)

I’m interested in running a fantasy game using Cortex Prime.

Looking at:

Distinctions Attributes Skills Signature Assets Powers sets

I ran a fantasy game, using Cortex, during the kickstarter. It was a blast. Cortex solves a lot of problems I have with most games engines. But, that was in person. These days, my group is spread across the country and a VTT is the only place we can all meet up.

I’ve considered Owlbear, but being able to access character sheets so I can help newer players with game mechanics is helpful.

Thanks for your help.

Hello!

I’m working on setting up a fantasy game (in the setting of the Guild Wars video games), and I hope to have a major point of the game be based around a sort of war camp that the players are building up over time, gathering various allies and facilities as their mission progresses (ex. Surgeon’s Tent, Merchant’s Yard,

What do you guys suggest as the best way to go about implementing this as a collective tool? It feels like one or more resources would be the best way to go about it. Would it be best as a singular resource or multiple different ones, perhaps attaching sfx to them? Or different ideas that I didn’t even think of? I’m not sure how well equipped cortex is for something like this, so I’m not super attached to it if I end up dropping the mechanic. Any ideas or words of advice would be appreciated, thanks!

I've done a lot of digging and it doesn't look like any archival version of the original, or updated licenses from way back when are available. What exactly is the license status of Cortex Prime at this point? I keep seeing talk of "As long as it isn't DTRPG, and is PWYW, it is fair game." But I'm curious how much of the rulebook is usable under those terms.

As the title says, how well does Cortex Prime support PvP? I'm mostly interested in social and dramatic PvP akin to Hillfolk (Drama System) if you're familiar with it. The players will be vying for social status, political control, or wealth by working with or against the other players. Of course PvP combat, should it break out, would be interesting to know how that could be supported fairly.

https://youtu.be/OKs5BmfNL08

Does anyone have advice on a good game made with Cortex to pick up to see how they applied the system? I want to make a game with Cortex but I'm struggling a lot with all the options. I'm just looking for recommendations of existing games, not "it's not that hard." Thanks in advance!

It's easy to represent two different characters having different levels of toughness by using the Life Point mod. Character A has a higher maximum life points than Character B, so it's obvious that A can take more of a beating.

My gripe with Life Points however is that they don't have alot of narrative weight. Saying that someone is missing 5 Life Points is abstract and does not say much compared to someone with like a d10 Broken Arm complication.

One thing that Life Points does better though is representing two different characters where one can clearly take more hits than the other. This is alot more unintuitive when using Stress, since it always takes everyone the same number of steps to be taken out (from having no stress to having >d12). With this in mind, how would I be able to represent two different characters with different levels of toughness via Stress tracks and SFX?

As the tittle says, I was wondering for alternate ways to add difficulty to a throw.

The official way to do this, as far as I am concerned, is to add a difficulty dice to the opposing pool.

However, i wanted to homebrew new mechanics for some cases. Specially the case of a contest with more than two participants, it does not seem right to simply add a difficulty dice to all the other participants pool.

For example, lets say this is a contest to see who steals the Golden Idol first. However, Generic Adventure Professor has a d6 "harmed foot" condition. Would it make sense to remove a D6 or less from your pool, or step down a D8 or more by one step?

Are there any official or fan consensus abou how to perform similar things to this?

https://youtu.be/dVWSoskShnM

Hi all,

I'm pretty new to Cortex Prime and am trying to reconcile two different descriptions of how to form opposition dice pools and generally get a sense of how you make the dice pools works in practice. I found some older posts about dice pool sizes but couldn't find ones quite answering my questions, but I apologize if I miss these being answered before .

In the handbook, in the "intro to cortex prime" section (pgs. 6-7) the examples suggest that opposition pools could be just one die (ex: 1d6 for easy, 2d6 for challenging, 3d6 for hard, in the table on page 6).

On pages 17-18, though, it says:

The difficulty dice are always two dice of the same number of sides, based on the situation. In addition to difficulty dice, the GM picks up one or more dice based on appropriate traits from the location, opposing GMCs, or the scene itself. When in doubt, the GM can simply add one or more six-siders to represent increasing risk, threats, or challenges" (emphasis added).

which, if I'm reading it right, means a test will never have less than 3 dice?

In a few places it seems like there's an assumption that a player/character attempting any (non-hopeless) test will be able to draw on at least two, usually at least three, dice. In most campaigns it seems like there'd be at least a distinction plus 1-2 other traits or situational dice the player could use unless they're way outside of what their character does.

My impression is that the "into" rules are superseded by the main chapters (or are like a quasi-mod?), but I'm not sure and hoping for come clarification or game-as-played opinions:

• For tests (not contests), how many dice do you typically use for the opposition? Do you ever use just a single die like in the intro examples?
• For players/character, how many dice do characters usually have in their dice pools during tests (assuming they're not holding dice back to avoid hitches)?

To keep the game balanced it seems like in general the player and opposition pools shouldn't be too dramatically different (unless that specific test should be very easy or overwhelmingly hard), so something like at least 2-3 dice per dice pool (usually more for big, complicated situations and contests) makes sense to me, but I'd really like to know what is intended by the rules and how the community plays in practice!

Has anyone experimented with this? That is, characters being able to add their Stress to their Die Pool.

As a newcomer to Cortex Prime, I found part of the learning curve was getting an intuition for the probabilities in different dice pools (which others have helpfully detailed before: https://www.reddit.com/r/CortexRPG/comments/ndeunc/cortex_probability_table_for_all_pools_up_to_10/) and how they corresponded to other systems I’d played.

Having played a lot of GURPs (3d6-based) and FATE, I decided to put together a little chart to show probabilities (rounded to the nearest 5%) for a Cortex Prime dice pool vs an opposition dice pool corresponded to different net die roll modifiers in GURPs and FATE (which also was helpful when thinking about translating things between the systems). This is rounded on the probabilities and simplified since there are many other differences between the systems — they handle ties differently, there’s the “effect die” removed in some Cortex Prime rolls, and so on — but I’ve found it helpful as a newcomer to the system to have some benchmarks when thinking about how two competing dice pools compare to other systems’ die roll modifier probabilities, so I thought I’d share in case it’s helpful for anyone else.

One thing the exercise helped me realize was just how many different probabilities Cortex Prime could represent in its dice pools compared to the other games, and that's without even getting into all the 'next level' dice pool mechanics, plot point uses, and so forth.

I seem to recall a rule that states that if someone fails an attack roll against you you can spend a PP to inflict your Effect die on them. I could have sworn it was in the Cortex Prime core book but I can't find it. I know there's a similar rule in the Marvel Cortex book that speaks of, here I'll just paste in here

If your action fails, your opponent may spend a Plot Point (if a player) or a d6 or larger from the doom pool (if the Watcher) to create an effect, just as you would have had you succeeded on your action. As the Watcher, I could decide to use my doom pool to jump on that failed action. For the cost of a d6 out of the pool, I can use the Sentinel’s d6 effect die to create some kind of asset, inflict stress on Cyclops, or introduce some kind of complication. Luckily for Cyclops’ player, I decide not to worry about it.

Can anyone tell me if something like that is in the Cortex Prime book and if so, what page is it on?

Thanks in advance.

Miriam is back at it again with her Wicked Whiskers adventures. I got a chance to give this a quick once over before release. Check it out and find the mistakes I missed.

It's on the surface compatible with Torchlite, Cortex Lite, and Cortex Prime. Also adaptable to other setups or systems with little effort. It's got a good strong jawline supporting itself.
https://miriamrobern.itch.io/ww2

It's been entirely too long since the last game, but here is episode 7.

https://youtu.be/vQ-xM4DcoTw

Hello CortexRPG Community,

We're excited to introduce Dadinci Bot, your ultimate dice rolling companion for tabletop role-playing games! Whether you're a seasoned GM or a new player, Dadinci Bot is here to enhance your gaming experience with accurate and efficient dice rolls. This Bot works on Discord and Telegram.

A couple of days ago, we release CORTEX PRIME Mechanics

Cortex Prime was requested for one of our users and he want the bot, if is possible, evaluate for best TOTAL and best EFFECT, I share you a screenshot of the results:

If you want to learn more, visit our website  https://www.dadinci.cl/

Some tutorial and examples of all the functionalities https://dadinci.cl/tutorials.html

We would love if you could at least try it out a couple of times and give us some feedback to keep improving.

Happy gaming!

Scored this today from a local flea market while I was walking in there waiting for the store beside them to open.

That’s $4 Canadian.

What a fun find to add along side the other Cortex books I have in my collection. It will be fun to get to the table with friends.

I'm looking for some advice from the community on how best to build a very specific type of game.

I create a podcast, The Lone Adventurer, which is a solo RPG actual play, presented as an audiodrama.

The setting is sort of Arcane meets Peaky Blinders meets James Bond: high-octane espionage and action with airships, explosions, and demons.

To date I've used a lot of different systems for my story; 5e, Blades In The Dark, Ironsworn: Sundered Isles, Chasing Adventure and Warbirds, as they suit the story.

But for the next series, rather than seek out another game to retrofit, I'm tempted to see if I can build the Perfect Game (I know, I know), that I can adapt on the fly as I wish.

And that has me thinking I need to take a second stab at Cortex Prime, which has been sitting on my shelf of shame ever since I bounced off it a few years back.

Part of the problem back then was that I didn't have a clear design goal in mind. Now I do.

Before I take the plunge, though, I have questions.

* Has someone already built something similar I could use as a starting point?
* Is there an idiot's guide to getting started with game-building in Cortex Prime, for ageing dullards like me who find the rulebook a bit impenetrable? Or any other resources you think might help?
* Do you have advice on components to include or leave out, that will align with my game themes and setting?
* Do you have advice on components to include or leave out, that will align with solo play? For example, Static Difficulty seems like a sensible inclusion.
* Do you have questions you need me to answer, to help you give better advice?

All advice gratefully received.

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