Troll Lord Games

Hey guys. I have been looking at Cortex rpg system. It looks pretty cool. From what I can see, it is similar to SW in some ways, but has a little more crunch. Anybody own it or run it on occasion? What do you think of it?
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When in doubt as to who is in charge on the battlefield, listen to the man with the bloodiest sword.

Cortex is a cool system. Its the same system that is the engine for the Serenity RPG, which is the only incarnation I've any experience with. It is somewhat similar to Savage Worlds but I havent gotten to run it yet and put it through its paces so I dont know how it plays. My experience only goes as far as having read the rules.

Some guys I game with have used it and like it a lot.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

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With both Leverage and Smallville rpg's announced, they have said they have altered the rules to be more social interactive than kill them and take their stuff.

It should be interesting to see how they do that.
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That is SIR! to you!

I may break down and buy this.
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When in doubt as to who is in charge on the battlefield, listen to the man with the bloodiest sword.

Sir Ironside wrote:
With both Leverage and Smallville rpg's announced, they have said they have altered the rules to be more social interactive than kill them and take their stuff.

It should be interesting to see how they do that.

Cortex is already not about killing things or taking their stuff. There's no monetary system in the core book, and experience and plot points are awarded purely by whatever the GM thinks should be given out. And I imagine that in the Battlestar Galactica RPG, there's not a lot of stuff to take in the first place (unless you're a Cylon), and killing is less about glory and more about avoided a dire fate for the remnants of humanity.
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ssfsx17 wrote:
Cortex is already not about killing things or taking their stuff. There's no monetary system in the core book, and experience and plot points are awarded purely by whatever the GM thinks should be given out. And I imagine that in the Battlestar Galactica RPG, there's not a lot of stuff to take in the first place (unless you're a Cylon), and killing is less about glory and more about avoided a dire fate for the remnants of humanity.

My comment was a catch-all for rpg's that revolve around combat, which is pretty much every rpg including Cortex. Rpg's have been combat centric for a very long time, that is why there are so many pages dedicated to just combat.

This new direction for Cortex actually takes away some of the importance of combat and replaces it with more social rules. So, much so that some of the attributes have been removed and replaced with different attributes. This isn't just some add on rules to the Cortex basic game, this is a re-visioning.
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That is SIR! to you!

So is combat worth running in Cortex? It sounds like it may be too rules lite in that department for me then. I am all for rules lite, obviously, but it's always a challenge to find that sweet spot between depth and speed of play.
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When in doubt as to who is in charge on the battlefield, listen to the man with the bloodiest sword.

Piperdog wrote:
So is combat worth running in Cortex? It sounds like it may be too rules lite in that department for me then. I am all for rules lite, obviously, but it's always a challenge to find that sweet spot between depth and speed of play.

Cortex, is Cortex... there will still be fighting rules, and Cortex is middle ground as far as rules sets go.

I am not a playtester, but I do know some and they have had a blast playing it. They have signed a NDA so they couldn't say much other than, it isn't what you think it is and you'll have more fun than you think you will.

I think reserving judgment is a good thing, it may very well not turn out to be something you'd like, but at least wait till it comes out before starting to put nails in the coffin.
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That is SIR! to you!

I didn't care for combat in Cortex at all. I ran a few sessions of it for a Serenity game and we eventually got so frustrated with the system we stopped playing altogether.

Roll to hit, roll for defense (what's the dodge roll again or were you using innate defense or blocking? did you announce you were taking multiple actions or are you applying the penalty for your next attack?), roll for damage, figure out if it's stun or wound damage, check to see if the damage done is more than your life point total, then roll to see if you pass out).

I've been told that they've cleaned things up a bit in more recent games, but I think the damage has been done and there's no going back for me.

Does anyone know whatever happened to the Supernatural (TV show) RPG that was supposed to utilize Cortex?

SigilWraith wrote:
Does anyone know whatever happened to the Supernatural (TV show) RPG that was supposed to utilize Cortex?

Looks/sounds like its available:
http://www.margaretweis.com/mwp-online- ... aying-game
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

Ah, yes... sorry about that. Amazon didn't want to reveal it to me as available at first, showing the Quickstart Guide as the only thing in existence and marking it as "unavailable"... but a Google search led me to the Amazon entry I was hoping to find. That's the 3rd time in 2 days now I have had trouble using Amazon's search engine but finding something on Amazon via Google just fine.

Just ordered mine new from Superherogameland.com for 19.11 (original price 29.99). I look forward to seeing how this plays. I bought the pdf from Drivethrurpg (Christmas in July sale) and liked what I saw enough to shell out for the book.
http://www.superherogameland.com/Search ... earch.y=12

In the meantime, I have been shopping at this store quite a bit and love the prices.
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When in doubt as to who is in charge on the battlefield, listen to the man with the bloodiest sword.

It's my system of choice for sci-fi.
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Ok, just got this and it looks pretty cool. I won't be able to get through the book until after GenCon, but from a cursory read, it seems like it will play smoothly. I'm looking forward to taking it for a spin.
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When in doubt as to who is in charge on the battlefield, listen to the man with the bloodiest sword.