Cortex Game Interest Check

[IsabellaRose]

My favorite game system is Cortex, or more specifically, the Cortex Drama system originally developed for the Smallville RPG, improved with suggestions in the Cortex Hacker's Guide, and then brought all together in the latest version of the system, Cortex Prime.

I'm considering running a dramatic game centered around a small group of PCs and their connected NPCs set in an 1880s wild west / steampunk / weird science world. Imagine someone combined the works of Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, HP Lovecraft, and HG Wells, added in a dash of Nikola Tesla, a pinch of Indiana Jones (without the Crystal Skull nonsense), mixed in Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, Annie Oakley, Doc Holliday and all the wild west tropes you can imagine, maybe added a bit of mad scientist and supernatural weird west nonsense, and dressed it all up in steampunk finery... and you're looking at the general idea for the setting. There will be over-the-top villains, square-jawed heroes, and buxom babes a plenty. Obviously, given our site, there were be lewd content and a deviation from the more buttoned-down, puritanical ways of the colonial western expansion and Victorian era, and I expect most characters to "get some" on a regular basis. In fact, I intend to add a mechanic that will make it imperative that you keep your honey pot stirred or your wick well dipped regularly in order to keep functioning at your highest level.

I will be adding some rules references in the game ooc discussion thread, and clarifying rules there if necessary, but everyone can check out the rules primer on the Cortex site at https://www.cortexrpg.com/compendium/explore-the-rules

 

If you're interested, reply here and I'll invite you. I'm looking for 3-5 reliable players who won't ghost the game. Normally I expect player drop out from an online game, but the way this system works, there is a Pathways system to setup the game world and it ties elements of the game world inextricable to every PC. If someone drops out or disappears, it can really mess up the flow of the game. So please, only sign up if you're serious and expect to be in it for the long haul.

Oh, we'll also be using another site for the Pathways map, which gets messy and confusing. So if you're leery of using other sites for things, don't sign up.

That's my pitch. I'll understand if no one replies. I'm an evil taskmistress of a GM. 

[SataiRolePlayingGuy]

I was one of at least a few people who showed a degree of interest in the general OOC (not sure how many of them will see this), if some of the others do show interest here (people I have enjoyed other non-TT RPs with in the past, along with the chance to maybe do something with you again), I would put myself in the maybe category.  I would put that as a maybe, though, with what I said over there.

1.  Again, I have no experience actually playing anything like this.  Let you judge how much of that is an issue, and how easy it would be for someone like me to be involved.

2. I'm been working myself out of a slow writing phase.  I'm finally starting to pick up again, but still working on that.

[MagnificentBastard]

I have been looking to learn new TTRPG systems and I already know how great a written you are, assuming you are okay with my lackluster knowledge of the rules and we can get a balanced party, I am more than interested.

[WickedCadrach]

I somehow got more excited with every word of that setup. I'm in!

Love the premise, and you already know I'm interested in giving Cortex a try. 

[SataiRolePlayingGuy]

I know at least @Chiyakoand @DreamsnThingsshowed some interest when this was brought up in the general thread.  Should give them a chance to see if they like the details.

[inkylore]

a maybe for me... its quite a new system for me so i may have to read up on it... since i wasn't able to get anyone for the game i tried to run i'd like to get back into playing dnd again like i used to. even though i was relatively new to it even back then...

[IsabellaRose]

I'll leave this interest thread open for a few days to give everyone a chance to reply and to field any questions. Feel free to tag anyone in you think would be interested. 

Also, as a sort of disclaimer/warning: Cortex is very much a narrative system. It's in the game category that I call a "fiction engine" in that the mechanics support driving conflict and drama and creating a narrative. This is VERY different from the usual D&D style of play, which I think of as "simulation engines" in that the mechanics try to simulate physics, combat, and the physical actions of a character in the world. 

In a narrative style game you won't track hit points or gold pieces, there's no inventory, and player death is rare and usually only happens when the player decides it would be a good way for their character to go out. The game is highly collaborative, and the way I run it, very improvisational. If you looked at the rules primer linked above, you will notice that you can roll a "hitch" which is a bad thing that happens when you don't succeed. Around a table, I'll have all the players toss in ideas for what the hitch is and we generally choose the most entertaining option. On here I might take a bit more of a referee role but if someone suggests a great hitch, I'm likely to use the player suggestions above my own. I will ask for input regularly, because this isn't my story I'm running you through, it's our story we're creating together. You will help create the world when we create characters and also as we play the game.  

I find this to be the most rewarding style of roleplay, but it's not for everyone. My D&D friends stumbled and took some time to wrap their heads around it, and a few bowed out because it wasn't what they wanted from an RPG. You've been warned. It's not a typical RPG, so if you think you wouldn't like a game without HP, Armor Class, and damage rolls, then you probably don't want to sign up.