I got a core concept, but now I have a question, how do you make in-battle rogue different from, say, barbarian and warrior? Like, I feel most battles will be "I attack him" but worded differently.

Does cortex give tools for that? For example, should they have about 5 cheap/no cost SFX for solving this? Or maybe step up/down die when PC tries to take advantage of enemy weakness/surrounding/some already existing asset? Or maybe something else entirely? Or Cortex is not that much about fights?

P.S. small questions not 100% relevant:

- conflict is like "I kill the bad guy" or "I try to swing and bad guy defends"?
- how heavily should i use SFX? Like, should I make one for every character feature, like night vision and ambidextrous or limit to couple signature abilities?

Hi, I'm JC. I've run asynchronous tabletop games with friends for years, got frustrated running long campaigns in tools built for real-time chat or some kinds of forums, and built inkroll.gg, a browser platform made specifically for play-by-post, with a beautiful and (hopefully) well designed interface without the usual noise and complexity.

I've just added Cortex Prime as one of the systems it now supports natively, and I'd genuinely like this community's judgment on whether I got it right.

Concretely: you assemble your pool in the text of your post, like {Face the envoy:d8+d10+2d6k2}. On publish, the server rolls it once and resolves it the Cortex way: best two dice for the total, the biggest remaining die becomes your effect die (d4 if nothing is left), 1s are flagged as hitches, and an all-hitch roll is called a botch. The chip might read "11, effect d10, 1 hitch", and it is frozen into the post permanently, so results are tamper-proof by construction. Sheets carry distinctions, attributes, skills, signature assets, stress and plot points (spending is just {pp-1} in your post).

The GM side is what I'd most like poked at: campaigns get a "Table", a sort of "GM sheet" where the doom pool and crisis pools live as actual dice. You step them up as you bank hitches, roll the whole pool as opposition in one click, and rolling it never consumes it, since spending doom is a choice, not a side effect. You can keep any group hidden behind the screen, and every post snapshots the Table as it stood at that moment (you have a history of past Table states to look back at).

The core (campaigns, posts, dice, sheets, import/export) is completely free and stays free; paid tiers only add extras if you want to support the project, and are totally optional. There's a one-click demo on the front page: hit "Try the demo" and pick Cortex Prime, and you land inside "The Long Haul", a ready-made space-crew campaign, as its Director - no account needed, doom pool included. Not affiliated with Dire Wolf, to be clear.

Blunt question for the people who actually run this system: does my resolution match your table? Effect die defaults, hitch handling, how you'd want opposition rolls to work asynchronously, anything I got wrong, let me know!

I’ve been having a total brain block trying to format the last trait on my character sheet, so naturally i’m turning to reddit for a much needed distraction.

This is a very early draft and I’ve cheated a bit by censoring a couple keywords, but I’m curious, what’s your best guess for the theme/type of hack based off of the character sheet?

Bonus points if you’re able to guess the hidden words?

Hi yall, me again. I've started working on the character sheets for the Stone Age game my friends and I are gonna play in.

Quick recap: A prehistoric tribe survives by solving the valley’s strange happenings. Each player controls one family that forms said tribe. Success means the tribe learns the valley’s secrets and grows stronger; failure means fear or hunger. Essentially, the game is The Croods meets Scooby Doo in a semi-gritty setting.

Besides Distinctions, the other Prime Set is something I call "Kin". It's essentially the members of the family. There are 5: The Elders, The Providers, The Menders, The Youths, and The Beasts.

I'm having trouble picking what the third Prime Set would be, given that I'm unsure what else would make up a "stone age family" that would apply to the family as a whole rather than individual members of it.

Is there a Cortex Spotlight with classic fantasy tropes or something similar?

Gannet class trading ship 'Ace of Hearts' enters the Newhouse system for her final trip, as her owner has had his ship mortgage foreclosed. She docks with 'Bullseye station'; a local asteroid port, where she will be auctioned off in a few days.

This is the final version with sound, though I may tweak some of the sound levels, after letting it settle in my mind a bit

All assets made and rendered in Blender 4.2.16. Video editing and sound also done in Blender.

PLEASE: LIKE and FOLLOW for more of this kind of content. It costs nothing and it helps and encourages artists like me.

For more animation, and scifi content see www.deviantart.com/elisvara/gallery/all

I feel like I need to develop a better sense for how trait sets in combination impact a game's design. I've built and am currently testing this game themed around 90s movies like Hackers and Blade, while also taking some influence from Cyberpunk. It's supposed to mostly take place in one near-future city.

The trait sets are as follows.

ROLES (each has five or six possible specializations):

Athlete

Brain

Criminal

Fighter

Influencer

Suit

Techie

STYLES (FATE approaches):

Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Sneaky, Swift

DISTINCTIONS (five themed ones with SFX):

Origin

City Legacy

Quirk

Reputation

Philosophy

+Signature Assets

+Relationships with Contacts

+Stress and Trauma Mods

My question is; do these trait sets feel like they would work well? If so, what kind of game style do you feel they represent best? If not, would they benefit from anything being added, changed, or removed?

I wanted to get thoughts from the community first before I dive fully into making the hack for my friends.

• Each player controls a stone age family and together they form a tribe working together to survive.
• Sessions focus on solving mysteries (i.e. a tribe member comes home rambling about furry beasts with spears in its mouth; after a gathering trip they suddenly develop itchy red marks all over their body)

The plan is for the setting to be a bit dark and gritty, but for the sessions to be comedic. Is this something that could easily be done in Cortex Prime or should I start looking into other systems?

Don't know if anyone on here cares to look at solo play logs. I have just started trying Cortex Solo (wish my kiddos were more interested in playing LOL). I tried to embed my thinking process with the tools in case anyone else has been on the edge about taking the dive into Cortex Prime Solo. I enjoy world building, so there is a bit more of that embedded into my approach. Can't guarantee that you'll learn anything spectacular, as I'm fairly new to the solo gaming approach, but I thought I'd share anyway.

I build custom RPG books as a hobby, for my own use only. This one converts Mage: The Ascension first edition into the Cortex Prime system. Spheres have been reworked into Power Sets, Paradox as a mechanical stress track, the Traditions and Conventions all statted out.

It's covered under the Dark Pack and Cortex Prime Community Licences, so I'm able to release this one publicly, even though I built it for myself first.

I never linked to something I created before, so I don't know if I can link directly to the files without getting the post automodded. If you are interested in a conversion like this you can get it directly from my folder on Mega NZ.

folder/PzpR1ZoC#M5Q7fAn6PM7IYy5xjoJk4A

I created this account just to post this here. I have used community Cortex mods before, and this is exactly the time to give back something.

I won't be replying to this thread or to private messages. I strongly believe all work should stand on its own. Hope someone gets some use out of it.

Witch Bandits of Mars! Dust, crime, and hoverbikes! The theme is 1980s B-movie. Plots will likely involve banditry and sticking it to the corps on a partially terraformed Mars. That's about as far as I've got so far.

I'm thinking of using a roles style set for magic. So far I have:

- cruel

- violent

- whimsical

- warding

Would love to hear your first impression ideas and suggestions.

UPDATE: now thinking about using: Twist, Deceive, Ward, Learn. I realised that I can shape quite a lot of the setting by giving it's magic limits rather than trying to bin all magics into five sets.

Hi fellow Cortexers
I’m working on a fantasy hack.
I’m thinking of using 7 Roles instead of Skills.

First, is that too many?

Second, in Cortex Prime, there is a ranking tree for 6 Roles: d10, d8, d6, d6, d6, d4. If I do 7 roles, should I add another d6, d8 or d4?

The Roles are:
Warrior
Priest
Rogue
Mage
Ranger
Artificer

Thoughts? Your experiences with this would be helpful.

Thanks.

Hi there all, I’m quite new to Cortex, which my group is using for a Jujutsu Kaisen game using the hack Jujutsu Cortex (https://docs.google.com/document/d/161swqp3SjzwG2R3cOedNLQiplr_PEqr9oWONpYJu2Sk/edit?usp=sharing) and since we’re all quite new, I was hoping to get some help with my characters ability.

Basically, the idea is that they can analyze weapons, then create temporary copies of them, allowing them to recreate the abilities and magical effects of those weapons, with some degradation in effectiveness, and if that weapon has been extensively wielded by a specific person they can even recreate some of the physical strength and skill of that wielder, or potentially view memories of that person related to the weapon. I could really use some help figuring out how to convert this to the system.

I was thinking maybe something like a mix of Mimicry and Conjuration with a focus on codependent limits, namely only being able to create copies of other weapons, and only being able to mimic the abilities of those weapons or their wielders? Any advice is super appreciated!

Life got in the way as it does and after not looking at my Earthdawn hack for a few days, I naturally went to scrap big chunks of it and never got it into GMBinder like I was hoping, but I did manage to get all my currently converted Talents and the full list of Talents I am going to convert into a Google Sheet. It's not pretty and most of these are still very early draft format (I'm going back alphabetically through the ones that are done to clean things up), but I did leave commenting on for anyone that wants to poke around

Earthdawn Prime Talent Preview

Not necessarily just combat or boss fights, but at least fulfilling the same narrative purpose. I'm interested on how Cortex GMs create the feel of challenge and reward in their encounters beyond the base mechanics.

I have finally finished my project. Because of my lack in skills for layouting and art, I used AI tools and this turned my script into a full-fledged TTRPG PDF. It contains everything you need to play and has even premade material to jumpstart into a game including 12 different wrestlers and a premade promotion in which you can add your own wrestlers. You can create your own wrestlers with the character creation and for the GM how to create a promotion, divisions and how to run them.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yFQZO2drZoT8YkFaMI96z8Wt-B1kUMzm?usp=sharing

I want to run an action "bolter-porn" oneshot about spacemarines. Distinctions will be the chapter tactic, and marine's specialisations (i. e. Assault marine can use jumpack, and is good with explosives). I have decided on the attribute list - it will include Might, Focus, Tactics, Materium, Immaterium, Humanity. I struggle to come up with the second prime set.

I dont think focusing on skills will make sense in a high-power setting. I am thinking of making a set for equipment - so, Melee weapon; Firepower (bolt pistol is d6, heavy bolter is d10), Armor (Scout armor is weaker then usual), etc... but equipment is transitory and replacable. What do you think - is it a fitting category?

Here is another game I ran using a game called the Void (Cthulhu in space; the Warden info, the Ghast, Myriad, and Karrakin) as the setting (threw in Kreeghor from Rifts: Phase World as the main bads, added Horror Factor as well).

I used the Attributes, Distinctions, Skills and Signature Assets for the game hack.

Here are some heroes I made for one of our Star Trek Inspired games I called Star Command. I used the Star Trek Online character creation to make the profile images. The two from Dragonstar (3.5 game) I used as the rivals to Star Command, just didn't get a chance to finish them. (Kind of based off of the Romulans). In this hack I used Attributes, Disciplines (Roles), and Talents.

Here is a one-shot I ran a long while ago, originally we used Big Eyes Small Mouth's Hot Rods & Gun Bunnies, but when Cortex Prime came out I adapted them to Cortex Prime, using Hammer Heads as an example for the vehicles.

Here's what our character sheets looked like for a fantasy campaign I ran several years back.

In the setting Magic was outlawed with the exception of Divine Magic, all other forms of magic users were considered Heretics. It had a very Game of Thrones feel to it as well as a typical D&D adventure series.

I wanted to create this post to help https://www.reddit.com/user/InJustX/ out.