Last year I produced a rules menu for the Cortex Prime RPG system – a breakdown of all the variant rules modules used by the game, in an digestible format, that GMs could print off and tick through to build their own personal ruleset. Since then, there have been two more versions of the beta released, so I’ve produced a new version of the rules menu to keep up with the changes.
Click here to get the latest version!
What inspired me to produce another version of this? Partly it was the very positive feedback I received for the last version from the Cortex System Roleplaying G+ community. Partly it’s the super-silly super-villain campaign I’ve been playing in recently, which runs on Cortex Prime. But the trigger was picking up a copy of Mage: The Awakening Second Edition – eagerly looking forward to using it for a “To The Strongest” Alexander of Macedon era game – and to my dismay, finding the magic system completely impenetrable. As intrigued as I was by the game’s setting, and as much as I wanted to enjoy the system (everything I’d heard about Chronicles of Darkness suggested the new edition had changed for the better), the dozen or so stages of mechanical resolution to cast anything but the simplest spells didn’t work for me at all. Unwilling to abandon the campaign idea entirely, I started looking for alternate systems, and Cortex Prime sounded like a good fit.
I think I’ll wait for Prime’s official release though. Scrabbling around in unfinished SRDs can be a bit of work, and I’m already tired enough from reading and re-reading unintuitive spellcasting mechanics. Since my Star Trek Adventures campaign came to an end, that leaves a hole in my roleplaying schedule which I’m very excited to fill. But what to try? Blue Rose, 7th Sea, Cold City, Predation and Undying are all on the shortlist – which one wins out remains to be seen.
Roll Plus Hot 
I do know that part of the convolution is intentional; it is supposed to be one of the reasons why mages rely on their rotes instead of casting ‘on the fly.’ However, you are not alone in feeling it takes something away from the game’s possibilities.
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Blog necro! I was curious if you were going to restore this project so certain it looks like the final product is not going to include such a thing.
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Hmm, so I certainly hoped that the final product would include something similar – Cam Banks advised it would, and it feels like the kind of thing Fandom could do really well with a more interactive digital interface, if D&D Beyond is anything to go by.
If it looks like that isn’t going to happen, I’ll see what I can do once the final product is out!
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Hi! I really like the idea of having this sheet available for setting planning – any chance you are interested in updating it to the final rules? 🙂
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Thank you! As I said above, I really hoped Fandom would be doing this themselves, as was originally pledged. But if they’re looking for someone to do the work for them, I work as an RPG freelancer for hire full-time now 😉
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Very nice. We need a super-compact rule-sheet to help the new players with all the basic rolls, the uses of PPs etc.
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