About a year ago, Scott Templeman and I were working on an SF setting for roleplaying called Serene Dawn. This idea has had many incarnations over the years, but back in December 2013 took on a particular flavour. Things went sideways, however, early in 2014 as Scott was forced to relocate and drop off the radar for some months. Yesterday, we got back to work.
One of the long-running questions for our setting has been that of which roleplaying game system to use. We’ve hacked through at least three different ideas, and I’ve been the one writing and editing our efforts. But yesterday, something seemed to click: it occurred to me that the game we were describing sounded an awful lot like Cortex Plus.
I smiled and said so.
What Cortex Does
I’ve never played Cortex Plus because we’ve never made it an option at the regular table. That said, I’ve been a fan of the system since 2008, when the Cortex Classic rulebook hit my attention. It was the system behind cult classic RPGs such as Leverage, Smallville, Marvel Super Heroic Roleplaying… and it’s the engine in the current Firefly RPG too.
What’s great about Cortex Plus that it’s designed to be hacked. Put simply, there are three basic models of play available (plus the fourth in the form of Firefly) and you get to play around with those to create the engine that best fits your own setting. And you can do all of that under the auspices of a very fair and generous fan license programme.
The game is simple to learn, very flexible, and very speedy… or, at least, it has been speedy when I’ve solo trialed the mechanics in the lonely silence of our upper room. (Billy No-Mates, eh?)
Serene Dawn
We decided that we have three primary design goals:
- Provide a fresh SF setting that addresses the problems we’ve encountered with SF gaming over the last 30+ years.
- Provide a fun and easy-to-learn roleplaying engine for roleplaying in that setting.
- Provide a fun and easy-to-learn skirmish wargaming engine for playing out the military conflicts that arise from the narrative of the setting.
Scott and I also want to get playing. Soon.
My task is to provide an introductory scenario for roleplaying in the Serene Dawn setting. That means writing a quick hack to emulate our particular brand of not-entirely-hard-SF-with-a-twist futuristic speculation. Cortex Plus is perfect for the ability to adjust the game to fit our concept. It’s also just a matter of tweaking, not writing from scratch.
Getting It Played
The biggest challenge, as we run into the early part of 2015, will be in getting to play the Serene Dawn scenario. While the Friday Night Roleplay group will be focused (quite rightly) on the long-awaited D&D5e campaign, and I am also running D&D with the school kids, we’ll have to find a new audience for this Cortex hack.
My initial thought is to do what I also planned to do a year ago: run the game via Roll20. That’ll mean finding some willing players and making some new connections, but it’s the best bet for actually getting a game.
On top of that, we aim to use the stuff that arises from play to inform and further develop the setting. Thus, anyone who plays also becomes a contributor. Scott and I will be looking to scoop up different perspectives and blend them in with our own ideas through play. Thus, getting a game is crucial for our setting to thrive.
So, if you’re a roleplayer who fancies playing online sometime – well, just let us know and we’ll put you on the list for a game.
Now then… where’s my copy of the Hacker’s Guide?
Game on!
Getting back to work YAR!