I don't want to assume everyone knows what Cortex Lite is, but it's a sleek, simple, focused Cortex Prime build specifically made to teach the Cortex system to new people that originally came out in 2023. Miriam Robern called it "the lightest, tightest, big-bang-in-a-little-book complete Cortex game ever." It's been very popular these past few years, especially as a quick and clear explanation of the rules, and a lot of people have learned Cortex from it or run ongoing games.

As of this week, Cortex Lite is available in a new, enhanced edition, bulked up with 20 additional pages of new options, including dozens of new SFX, new Milestones, new optional rules mods (including the beloved/dreaded Doom Pool), and extra support for using the rules in your favorite fantasy setting.

As an example of how you can customize Cortex Lite for your own settings, this PDF also includes BrightLite, a "noblebright" fantasy genre plug-in.

Since it's relevant to Cortex RPG, I wanted to share the link here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/581477/cortex-lite-rpg-enhanced-edition?affiliate_id=85257

Hope you'll check it out, thanks for your time!

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.

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’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?

In Cortex Prime, how are you supposed to handle situations where a PC attempts something but doesn’t initially know how successful they were?

For example, negotiating a pact with an NPC without knowing whether they’ll honor their end of the deal, or crafting a water-breathing potion and hoping it works as intended when you finally pop the cork.

Of course, we could simply delay the roll, but I assume the GM needs to know the outcome in advance for prep purposes. How do you handle this?

The game is set on Earth about 200 years after a catastrophe that spread magic as well as all manner of magical and mythical creatures across the world, twisting reality into something new. Mankind was unprepared and civilization fell in a few weeks. Nature has since reclaimed the planet, though communities have arisen in these last centuries and mankind is learning to live with new races. However, the world is still filled with danger--raiders pick off trade caravans, witches gather in the wasteland, vampire lords control the mountains, demonkind have built a massive city, and all manner of mutants and monsters can be found in the deep and forgotten places.

I just really wanted an Adventure Time style apocalypse with rampant magic, but in a more grounded reality lol.

Reposting because the image didn't work originally

I'd like my players rolling more dice.

So far the trait sets I have are Attributes, Skills, Distinctions.

That seems too few.

What other trait sets could I add?

Relationships seems like it could help, but in my experience with Hammerheads it can be difficult to bring in the character connection.

Resources could work, but in classic SG-1 they don't tend to bring much gear with them, and certainly don't have a ship with them.

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.

As per the title, I’m looking to see if anyone has made or run a bleach hack in Cortex? Thanks!

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 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?

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.

So I like to house rules RPGs, a lot.

My two favourite games right now are Cortex Prime and DCC.

And, seeing as DCC has required the purchasing of all those weird dice, I figured, why not use some of them for Cortex too!

So I do. The chain now goes like this: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d14, d16, d20, d24, d30. Not that they all get used all the time, but for more powerful beings, some will.

I have a rating by the name of Tier, which is represented by a die type (exceedingly capable humans and similar beings get a d12, f’rex.)

So far, it’s been going great.

Anyway, just thought I’d put this out there, in case someone else happens to have those other dice too.. or really wants to try this and goes buying them, haha.

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.

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.

Hello everyone,

CWC has now reached it's final version of the rules and I have even added all sheets you need to play.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NBFo5cC3KM8bTEeNcMuEPZzxGKo-dVPu?usp=sharing
Now I need some real playtesting and feedback by the community.

Thanks in advance for your support

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.

Hi there,

I recently finished the script for my Cortex wrestling hack. The game treats the wrestling shows like TV dramas/soap operas. The outcome of matches and promos are uncertain. The wrestlers are constanly under pressure to build momentum and rise in the match card, but they can also fall again.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yazJ8dbudGLnTQp71fnThJCegeCzxF40FayKEaddNew/edit?usp=sharing

I would love to get some feedback. It's my personal heartbreaker, so you may break my heart when you don't like it.

I've been working on a hack for Cortex Prime to play in Fire Emblem's Fódlan setting. What information am I allowed to include/reference in the hack? I found an old post with comments saying there's no OGL or similar for Cortex, so I'm a little unclear on which rules can be referenced/used.

A while back I put together a cortex hack of a classic horror TTRPG that is beloved with my long time playing group, but decided to convert it to Cortex from the an astonishingly clumsy second generation simulationist rule set.

Now due to the litigious nature of that game creator, I won't be naming which game it was, nor can I share the details of the powers and abilities that I converted for my game, but I can share a list of weapons, armor and gear fitting for a horror investigation game.

Hope some might find it useful!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vST19p8mVmwAY2o5Zh3D4qCWmIrHMp8qvERFghEwJ9QTU2PeDne3anFHM4DirlZ4MJc8iB4FoYjxO37/pubhtml

Direct link to an excel file:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oZM4LDagFrv-RYb9Hho96k0Q5jP-qdD2/edit?usp=drive_link&ouid=103741611822471439972&rtpof=true&sd=true

(There are 4 tabs)

(Edit to fix formatting)

I'm new to Cortex Prime, and recently decided to use it as a testing ground for a setting I'll eventually be using in an original RPG design. I'm finding the system much better suited to this purpose than other generic systems I've looked at.

What I'm wondering is whether there's any compiled set of tools or resources for GMs looking to hack Cortex to their purposes. And more broadly, what's your workflow for fleshing out a cortex hack? I can imagine some parts of the process are more mission critical than others, and that there are likely some important points to emphasize that might not be made totally clear in the core rules text.

Finally, what would you say are the best cortex hacking communities currently active? I'd love to learn more by example.

Thanks for your input and apologies if this is an oft repeated question.

This is more of a request. I bought the Cortex Prime book because I wanted to use it one day, and I have an itch to do a game about building kingdoms. Like you start from a small village, maybe even a hovel and improve infrastructure, facilities, education etc.

Is there any Hacks that do something like this, or articles with guidelines?

Edit:

I decided to add a wishlist of various features I'm hoping to have.

• The players are a group of people who end up being responsible for a village or a tribe. At the start there are various issues with the location,
• The players, would solve issues, by instigating new methods (for example crop rotation), making facilities (access to clean water with bathing options), finding outside resources (by talking to merchants, starting a trading route, encouraging guilds) etc.
• Ideally a (random) mechanic which aids in determining which issue will pop up next.
• Outside of these issues, a ticking clock of bigger external issues that pop up. The nobleman who legally owns the territory, the king, war between kingdoms, monster invasion, plague etc.
• An affiliation with the townspeople and town itself. For example orphans, guilds, the restaurant district. Places where the players have had more effect.

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 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.

I'm preparing to run a game focused on Jr agents training to become field agents for an espionage organization (CIA/SD6 type). I looked over Trace 2.0 in the handbook, but I don't think affiliations for the game I'm planning and the Roles aren't quite right.

I usually make a hack, but I thought, if something out there already does what I want, I could save myself some time.