Cortex Steampunk: Rules Reference

[IsabellaRose]

I'm posting the basic rules and custom build info here. This will be edited, but locked to prevent it getting messy.

Character Creation

Spoiler

Character Sheet 

• Relationships (die rating and a statement)
• Values (die rating and a statement)
• Distinctions/Traits (die rating and a general description with SFX)
• Abilities/Powers (die rating, effect, descriptor(s), limits, and SFX)
• Signature Assets (die rating, effect, descriptor(s), limits, and SFX)
• Resources (die rating, specialties)

Relationships

Spoiler

Relationships are traits that represent the intensity and importance of a character’s connection to another character or group of characters. This connection may be positive or negative in nature, so long as it motivates and empowers the character who has it. PCs start with relationships with other PCs and some NPCs but can add more during play. This makes relationships flexible and not as limited as some other trait sets. A relationship contributes its die rating to a dice pool when the test or contest involves the character the relationship is linked to, or when that character has influence over or inspires the PC. 

Rating Relationships

A relationship’s die rating indicates the intensity of the character’s feelings or attachment to the subject of the relationship. A high die rating doesn’t mean you necessarily like the subject more than a low one; in fact, your 10 relationship might be a really intense hatred, or a particularly strong jealousy.

• d4: I don’t feel anything for this person.
• d6: This person matters, but so do a lot of people.
• d8: I’m invested in this person.
• d10: This person matters more than most.
• d12: There’s nobody who matters more than they do.

Relationships between PCs start at d4 and are assigned and stepped up during the Pathways segment of game/character creation. 

During play, a d6 relationships can be created using a PP, much like a temporary asset. The relationship lasts for the duration of the session; when experience or growth is resolved, it can either be dropped or made permanent. If made permanent, the relationship remains as a d6 until stepped up in later sessions.

If a PC has no relationship to a character for any given test or contest, they can either create one with a PP or use a d4 default relationship value.

Values

Spoiler

Values represent how much specific things matter to the PCs and, in turn, how much they influence the outcome of tests and contests. They can embody such things as societal mores, cultural principles, or elements of a code of honor or behavior. As with relationships, a high rating in a value doesn’t mean your character likes or stands out as a paragon of that value, but rather that they are more invested and concerned about that value than if they had it at a lower die rating. A 10 in Truth could still mean the character is a liar, but the concept of truth and falsehood is one of the things that drives them the most to succeed. Values show that what motivates a character and what they believe in is more important than physical or mental attributes. 

Values List

Our custom values list for the steampunk/weird west game is listed below, along with a couple opposing example statements for each.

• Honor: Motivated by personal codes, sworn oaths, and promises kept. Honor could mean dueling at dawn or refusing to betray your gang.
  “A person’s word is worth more than gold.”
  “If my honor’s questioned, blood will spill.”
• Greed: Motivated by wealth, land, inventions, or raw ambition. Gold rush fever, patents, or the next rail line... the hunger for more drives you.
  “The man with the money makes the rules.”
  “I’ll take what I can before someone else does.”
• Faith: Motivated by religion, superstition, or belief in the unseen, from the church pulpit to whispered charms against the undead.
  “God watches every deed I do.”
  “Spirits and demons walk among us, and they must be respected.”
• Passion: Motivated by love, lust, desire, and raw emotion, for a person, an ideal, or even a thrill.
  “I’ll gamble it all for the fire in my heart.”
  “Love’s a weapon, and I know how to use it.”
• Law: Motivated by rules, order, and authority, whether upholding the badge or resisting it. Law in the Weird West is never neutral; you either cling to it or spit on it.
  “The law keeps civilization from crumbling.”
  “The law’s just another kind of chain.”
• Survival: Motivated by grit, pragmatism, and the will to see another sunrise. The frontier demands sacrifices; survival means deciding what’s worth giving up.
  “I’ll do whatever it takes to make it through.”
  “If I don’t fight for myself, no one else will.”
• Progress: Motivated by invention, discovery, and the march of technology. Progress is steam, gears, and science, but it also tears down the old ways.
  “Steam and steel are the future.”
  “Some things shouldn’t be tampered with.”

Rating Values

Values have the same range of dice as any other set of attributes. There is a difference with values, though. When a value changes, either stepping up or stepping down by a die size, one other value must change at the same time in the opposite direction. Thus, the total number of die steps in the dice assigned to values should always stay the same. Values can never be lower than 4 or higher than 12. The die rating of a value measures how much the value matters to the character, as follows:

• d4: “I’m really not into this.”
• d6: “Sure, this matters. But so do a lot of things.”
• d8: “This is definitely on my radar.”
• d10: “I’m all over this thing.”
• d12: “This is my heart and soul.”

Distinctions/Traits

Abilities

Signature Assets

Resources

Stress Tracks

SFX

Trouble/Doom Pool

Contests/Tests