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Cortex Prime: Small Unit Combat Rules, Part I

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Small Unit Combat for Cortex Prime

This article is a work-in-progress subsystem for Cortex Prime games. I’ve formulated these ideas while working on my Shadowrun Cortex Prime hack, but this system in particular would have usefulness in any modern or futuristic game where small force-on-force tactical engagements are a key part of the game.

These rules will be updated after playtesting. If you have suggestions, leave a comment!

System Assumptions

The below has not been tailored for the Shadowrun ruleset yet, but is formulated for an international espionage/military thriller game I’ll be running for some friends. I’m using a “simplified” (compared to the Shadowrun work) Cortex Prime that starts similar to the Leverage system in Cortex Plus with some of the Shadowrun ideas previously-described incorporated. Trait Sets are Approach, Aspects, Role (rather than Skills, which Shadowrun will use), Specializations, and Signature Assets.

Approaches are: Covert, Expedient, Dynamic, Cunning, Deliberate, Daring.
Roles are: HUMINT, SIGINT, Tradecraft, Direct Action and Analysis.
Relevant Specializations: Direct Action: CQB and Marksmanship; Analysis: Tactics 

This system is using a Physical Stress and Physical Trauma track to account for injury.

What is Small Unit Combat?

When I use the term “Small Unit Combat” in this post and for these rules, I mean localized tactical engagements at the fireteam level, where there are only a handful of combatants on either side. Specifically, these rules were designed with close-quarters battle (breaching, room-clearing and short distance engagements) in mind. Further revisions and additions will be necessary to use these rules on a larger scale or to employ them reliably outside of CQB scenarios.

In CQB situations with trained combatants (we’ll assume that the player characters at least fit that bill), individual operators work cooperatively and closely in fireteams. The fireteam executes its maneuvers, attacks and actions as a cohesive unit, with each person in the unit having pre-assigned and well-drilled responsibilities during each maneuver or action undertaken by the team. For instance, as the team navigates, it does so in a predefined formation, with each fireteam member having not only a designated spot within that formation, but also a designated “field of fire,” an angle or scope of the battlefield around the team in which that member is responsible for engaging targets.

When the team breaches a room to engage the targets within, these roles take extra significance and are determined by the tactical approach decided upon by the team leader. If the team leader determines that entry will be made through a locked door, then the team’s roles might look like this: one person is designated as the breacher—the person responsible for eliminating the door as an obstacle (this might be done by the use of a breaching shotgun to blow the door of the hinges, a breach charge to explode the door inward, or by hand tools like a sledgehammer or battering ram); a second person standing by with a flashbang or explosive weapon to surprise and soften the targets in the room; and the rest of the team who will move into the room immediately after the detonation of the device deployed by the second person (the first of whom is usually referred to as the “point man”. As each assaulting team member moves in, he must make a decision about how to turn and which angles of the room to engage. The team will have painstakingly drilled beforehand on the individual process of room clearing, the priority of target engagement and the positions within the room in which each assaulter will conclude the assault (if all goes well). But as the first assaulter enters the room, she must determine which side of the room she will engage; those who follow cue their own engagement strategies off of the person in front of them. This allows for a combination of well-drilled maneuvers and extemporizing to address the realities of actual contact with the enemy.

Numerous examples of these techniques can be found on the internet, movies and TV. An understanding of the techniques and tactics of close-quarters battle will greatly assist in the use of these rules in a way that creates exciting and fast-paced combat encounters that may be resolved in a matter of minutes.

Fireteams as Characters

These rules assume that the number of player characters involved in the game are roughly the size of a fireteam or breaching unit—typically four to five people, but we’ll assume 3-6 to be accommodating. If there are more PCs than that, they should likely be divided into two (or more) fireteams for the purposes of the combat. Enemy fireteams should be of comparable size.

Like the Fate Fractal, this system models fireteams as characters to “zoom out” from individual actors slightly, simplifying and speeding up combat without depersonalizing it for the players (hopefully). The rules for determining the Trait Sets for fireteams are given below.

Traits for Fireteams

NPC Fireteams: The core of NPC fireteam dice pools are composed of one die for each combatant in the fireteam. The die type correlates with the combat effectiveness of each combatant (later on, I’ll refer to each member’s added die as their “Quality Die”). A combatant with no training and no experience likely uses a d4, while a combatant with training but no real combat experience probably uses a d6. A combat veteran would typically add a d8 to the pool, an elite operator a d10 and a top-ten-in-the-world type combatant a d12. This however, is just a suggestion—you can adapt these rules to skew more to the “hardcore” realistic side or to the more cinematic side by the weight given to combatant skill and experience in dice selection.[1]

I’m going to suggest that NPC fireteams be given no more than six combatants—use multiple fireteams to handle additional combatants. I will likely, in the future, develop some additional systems to address other specific combat scenarios—holding out against overwhelming assault forces, for instance.

Player Fireteams: A player fireteam’s dice pool is composed of the team’s Tactics Die and its Operator Dice.

The first die in the Fireteam’s Pool is their Tactics Die. The Tactics Die is equal to the Tactics specialization die of the fireteam’s designated leader.

Operator Dice: Trained operators in a CQB fireteam communicate primarily about when to take action, not how to take action—each member of the team is expected to know his role and be able to function effectively without getting in the way of his teammates. Each teammate in the fireteam contributes his Direct Action die to the dice pool. If a character’s CQB specialization is higher than his Direct Action skill, he may use that die instead. If the character has the CQB specialization but it is lower than the Direct Action skill, the character may step up his Direct Action die by one (the usual maximum of d12 still applies) when operating in a fireteam.

Other Fireteam Factors

Injury: The highest Stress or Trauma die for any fireteam member who is injured but not out of the conflict is added to the opposing dice pool, per normal combat rules.

Technology and Equipment: If a fireteam is using vastly superior technology to its opponents, give the fireteam an Asset that represents the scale of the difference. For instance, a special ops team operating at night with thermal and/or late-gen night-vision goggles and top-tier weaponry after cutting off a building’s power and facing opponents armed with only improvised melee weapons might get a d12, whereas a fireteam with standard military technology of the most developed nations fighting against a fireteam using outdated but functional firearms and tech might enjoy a d6 bonus. No specific guidelines are given for this die so that it is adaptable to particular situations—but this means consistency in its use is paramount.

Other Assets: As with any Conflict under Cortex rules, a fireteam with time to prepare may create Assets to assist impending combat. This uses the normal rules for Asset creation and must also make narrative sense. These Assets should typically represent good planning and preparation for a maneuver (Covering Fire, Multiple Breach Points, Overwatch) or bringing special equipment to bear (Breaching Charges and Flashbangs). It may be assumed that a fireteam equipped with particular equipment will be using it per standard operating procedures even when Assets are not in play, so Assets should represent especially-effective applications of those tools and equipment.

Combat Effects

The most common goal of an engagement is to stop the enemy, whether by pacifying them, driving them off, or inflicting sufficient injury that they can no longer fight back. In general, fireteam combat operates like combat between individuals (with Effect Dice as damage), but the following changes are necessary to bring the system into greater focus.

Inflicting Harm-the Characters

When a fireteam containing one or more PCs takes damage, we need to know which operator has taken the specific hit. Doing this is relatively simple. Each member of the fireteam is assigned the numbers 1-12, for simplicity sake, you may just assign the numbers arbitrarily, making sure to assign a number to each member of the fireteam before assigning additional numbers to any other member of the fireteam. The numbers should be as evenly distributed as possible, i.e. in a fireteam of four each member should have three numbers assigned. If the numbers don’t divide evenly, or for greater realism even when they do, start with those characters taking the most exposed roles in the team (first in, rear guard, etc.) in assigning numbers.

When an Effect Die is selected, apply it to the character corresponding to the number shown on the die. Each injury die assigned to a character in the fireteam is added to enemy fireteam dice pools.

Given the lethal nature of close-quarters battle (and the benefit of not dealing with armor rules in a complex manner), injuries inflicted by successful enemy/opposition rolls will be counted as Trauma, whereas injuries applied as Complications (see below) will be counted as Stress.

Inflicting Harm—NPCs

Most NPCs in fireteams will be nameless combatants. Therefore, it is not as important to keep specific track of injuries for individual members of a fireteam. To remove an NPC from combat, an Effect Die equal to their Quality Die. For each Effect Die equal to or greater than a combatant’s Quality Die, an NPC combatant is removed from action. If the fireteam has members of mixed Quality Dice, I recommend removing the lower-quality combatants first. Note that this simplified damage system is not based necessarily on killing enemy combatants, but rather, rendering them combat ineffective. That could certainly mean that they have been killed, but it could also mean that they have fled, surrendered, been too injured to continue fighting or that some other circumstance has intervened to prevent them from fighting further—this is intentionally left to narrative freedom.

If the Effect Die assigned against an NPC fireteam is less than the lowest Quality Die in the group, apply that die as a Complication to the NPC fireteam. When a subsequent Effect Die is applied to the fireteam, if the steps of the second Effect Die added to the Complication Die would meet or exceed one of the Quality Dice in the group, remove both a Quality Die for the eliminated combatant and the Complication die. Each Effect Die assigned may injure or eliminate only one enemy combatant at a time—dice steps over the threshold to eliminate a combatant are lost.[2]

A Side Note About PC Injuries

As these rules are currently written, multiple PC injuries will quickly put a PC fireteam in extreme danger. Playtesting will be necessary to make sure that this works in practice (the alternatives I have in mind are to apply either an “average” of the current injury dice or simply the highest injury die in effect as the bonus die to the enemy fireteams). The rationale for the current system is to make combat difficult for characters and to make them focus on good preparation and execution to avoid stumbling into massacres. After playing with these rules some, I may change to one of the alternatives. If you happen to try out these rules for yourself, your input and criticisms are appreciated.

Extra Effect Dice

In some of my previous posts on the in-progress Cortex Shadowrun design, I’ve introduced the idea of applying multiple Effect Dice from a single roll (although I’m sure I’m not the first person either to think of or to implement this or something similar).

One of the goals of this system is to provide a simplified combat system for larger-scale combats (as a supplement to individual-based combat, which may be more dramatically appropriate in certain cases). As such, a limit to only taking out one enemy at a time doesn’t make a whole lot of sense—it artificially slows the pace of combat.

So, I’m going to allow the use of multiple Effect Dice on a successful roll. My current thought (before playtesting) is to allow an additional Effect Die to be applied for each three full points the successful party’s roll beats the opposition’s roll. I also intend to allow a Plot point to be paid to allow one additional Effect Die to the result. Both options assume that an Effect Die is available to be used.

Complications

When Complications are invoked against the PCs in this CQB ruleset, the easiest application is to apply the Complication as Stress to one of the characters—representing that character taking a hit stopped by body armor (but painful, scary and distracting nonetheless), being lightly injured in a hand-to-hand scuffle, or suffering an environmental injury while maneuvering.

One complicating factor here is the determination of which character should suffer the Complication. For this, I’m going to implement what I’m tentatively calling “the Hotseat.” In brief, a different player rolls the team’s dice pool each turn; the character belonging to the rolling player is “in the Hotseat” for that turn and is the one who suffers the (personal) effects of the Complication if one is taken (although, for purposes of the team’s rolls, the entire team will suffer the effects of the Complication Die as it’s added to enemy fireteams’ rolls).

Conclusion and Moving Forward

This system is, as mentioned, currently theoretical and without playtesting. I’ll post about my experiences playtesting it and make modifications to it based upon those experiences.

Additionally, it is not yet complete. Here are a few things I’m already thinking I’d like to add:

-Rules for Sniper Teams
-More guidance for objectives that are not simply combative (we’ll start, I think, with some of the classic video-gamey objectives—bomb disarmament, hostage rescue, etc.)

I’d love to hear from you guys—criticisms, alternative rules or approaches, or things you’d like to see added as well!

 

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[1] It should be noted here that by “hardcore,” I do not mean incredibly mechanically detailed or overly concerned with the minutiae of combat—whether a .45-caliber submachinegun is a better weapon in a particular situation than a short-barreled assault rifle, for instance. Instead, I mean the feel of the combat and thus the game. Is this a game where every combat action carries a serious risk of death or where the player characters are expected to steamroll standard infantry like an 80’s action movie? The nuances of combat are many and, while they make excellent details for the narration of firearms combat, typically only to stall progress and make a fight boring when it should be exciting if incorporated into the mechanics of the system employed.

[2] Of course, you can change this rule and count surplus dice steps against subsequent combatants for a more cinematic game.

Shadowrun Cortex Prime, Part V: Conjuration

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For the previous post in the series, click here.

This should be a relatively brief post since it builds entirely upon the previous post in the series.

Conjuration
Conjuration is the practice of summoning, binding and banishing spirits. The types of spirits summoned depend upon the tradition of the mage doing the summoning.

Types of Spirits
I’m going to leave it to anyone using these rules to determine the types of spirits a particular character can summon by refernce to the Shadowrun rules. I will say that I find it unnecessary to create a list of abilities and powers for spirits–just allow what seems sensible for a spirit of that type. If you want to use the Shadowrun base ruleset as a guide for making any calls at the table, that’s not unreasonable.

Spirit Stats (Force)
Summoned spirits have a dice pool of three dice equal to the effect die used in summoning them.

Summoning and Binding Spirits
Summoning and binding spirits takes a single roll, thanks to the use of multiple effect dice.

Dice Pool: The dice pool consists of an Approach (appropriate to the method of summoning the spirit), the Conjuration skill, the character’s Magical aspect (to be discussed in a later post), any applicable assets, Signature Assets or Specializations.

Resistance Pool: The resistance pool should be determined primarily by the circumstances of the summoning: is the character pressed for time or under fire, does the character have adequate resources for ritual magic/summoning, etc.

Primary Effect Die: As mentioned above, the primary effect die from the caster’s pool is used to establish the “Force” or dice type in the pool of the summoned spirit.

Additional Effect Dice
Services: For each step in the die assigned to services, the Spirit will perform one task for the summoning character (giving a total of 1 to 5 tasks).
Drain: As per Sorcery.

N.B. – Yes, this means that it takes a minimum of four dice to summon a spirit (except in the case of a d4 Force spirit, in which you can have only three dice and use the “free” effect die for your primary effect die). In the games of Shadowrun I’ve run using the original rules, the sudden summoning of a spirit in the middle of a fight is a game-changing force-multiplier; I’ve had magicians summon spirits of air to down pursuing helicopters, spirits of fire to hold off massed security squads, etc. I do not want to eliminate those moments–they are part of the fun of the Shadowrun setting and create stories the players talk about long after leaving the table. At the same time, I want to make sure that such a feat is impressive not simply because of the effect, but also because of what it takes to pull it off. Summoning a spirit while minimizing Drain will typically require some preparation (i.e. the creation of preparatory assets) and a little luck (or an Edge Point).

Spirit Services
I want to intentionally leave this somewhat broad, in part because negotiating what counts as a service and what doesn’t can make for interesting roleplaying. I won’t leave you without any guidance, however: in general, a service is a discrete function provided by a spirit, such as attacking a target, using an ability to create an effect (asset or complication), sustaining a spell, etc. The biggest difficulty in determining services is in deciding whether a command constitutes more than one service. As a general rule, a single command counts as a single service unless that service is provided over multiple scenes, in which case the action is one service per scene (and requires the magician to spend a point of Edge, see below). A detailed command that consists of several discrete activities should require one service per discrete portion of the command.

For example, “Knock over that command vehicle and attack the people inside,” is two services in my reckoning.

Longevity of Spirits
A spirit stays with the magician long for one scene. The magician may spend an Edge Point for the spirit to persist for the rest of the session; otherwise, any unspent services are lost at the end of the scene.

Banishing
Banishing a spirit is simply an attack against the spirit using the Conjuring skill as the applicable skill. Results are factored like attacks against any character.

Quick and Dirty Review: The Witcher RPG

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I only found out about a week ago that R. Talsorian Games would be putting out an RPG for The Witcher, so I fortunately only had about that amount of time to wait before sinking my teeth into the new game. This stands in contrast to Netflix’s upcoming Witcher TV show, which seems to be coming to us only at a laborious pace.

Regardless, I’m a big fan of The Witcher books and setting, and I’m a firm believer that The Witcher 3 video game is hands down the best video game made to date. So an official RPG for this world certainly caught by attention. Not only for the setting itself–my own Avar Narn setting is a gritty fantasy world and I’m always looking for innovative design ideas that might influence my own eventual RPG design.

A brief caveat: this game was (as far as I could tell) just released on DriveThruRPG.com last night (at the end of GenCon, where I believe that hardcopies were available). I picked up my PDF copy on DriveThru for $24.95. A hgher price than many RPG PDFs I’ve purchased, but not as high as several others in my collection.

I do have a day job, so this review is based on a quick read of the book. Take that as you will.

R. Talsorian is known for the Cyberpunk RPG, a classic in the development of roleplaying games as a whole, though a game I’ve never played. The rules are derived from that system, though crafted to fit more particularly with the dark fantasy of The Witcher.

I will say this about the rules–they are sensible, and relatively easy to grasp in their various parts, but there is a complexity to them that makes me think, “Ugh. A fight’s going to take forever.” The attacker rolls for damage, the defender rolls to dodge, the difference between the numbers is compared to determine a hit or critical hit. Hit location is rolled. Damage and critical hit results are rolled (criticals make use of charts that vaguely remind me of The Riddle of Steel RPG and its successors). Those things are all great for creating a gritty feel for combat, but there are a number of ways that all that dice rolling for a single action could be made more efficient.

Still, if D&D is your go-to, I don’t think that you’ll find that this game plays slower than that. And, between the two, I’d take this combat system over D&D and its derivatives any day. It may have a lot of rolling, but its somewhat intuitive and at least interesting under its own mechanics. Sorry, I digress.

I will say, though, that tracking weapon endurance points is a bit much. It’s one thing to have weapons break at dramatic moments, or to have a system that encourages players to have their characters maintain their equipment, it’s another to have to knock off a point of reliability every time I use it to block (though there are exceptions that allow for blocking without sacrificing weapon endurance in certain circumstances).

The other gripe I have is not necessarily a gripe with the rules but a potential pitfall for any RPG that does this setting justice–players who have characters who are not witchers or mages may find themselves greatly overshadowed. Careful planning and discussion before a campaign begins may be warranted to ensure that players are all on the same page.

To me, a “regular” guy (to the extent that RPG player characters ever represent average people, even within the game world they occupy) forced to deal with monsters is perhaps more interesting than a witcher who does–Geralt excepted, mostly because I don’t believe it’s his being a mutant monster-killer that makes him most interesting.

The rulebook misleads on this front a little, I’m afraid. While continuously making clear that most monsters take half damage from non-magical or non-silver attacks, it seems implicit within the writing that the designers just don’t believe that non-witchers would ever have access to silver weapons. I just don’t find that plausible.

It should also be noted that the game is licensed from CD Projekt Red, and thus based on the video game Witcher 3 rather than the books directly. There are some optional rules to bring the game more in line with how things work in the books when that divurges from the game.

As for the look of the book: the layout and artwork are exceptional; the end result is surely a thing of beauty. Combined with fairly extensive background information on the world of The Witcher, I think that this book is a must-have even for a fan of the setting who doesn’t have any interest in roleplaying games.

But for those who do, the gamemaster section of the book has some excellent advice for gamerunners. There are plenty of roleplaying game books that are valuable in particular for their advice to the GM (and a growing number of books dedicated solely to that task), but this is a nice additional benefit.

The Witcher RPG releases at an interesting time, I think–the early draft of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition just dropped recently. Both are gritty fantasy settings full up with desperate surivors over heroes, where adventuring is not a glamorous or desireable profession. Both are intricate settings with deep history and a rabid fanbase. Both games have, I think, pretty similar levels of “crunch” to them (though, to be honest, I hate the terms “crunch” and “fluff” attributed to games). In other worlds, they fill the same niche, a more mature-by-design setting for fantasy games compared to D&D and other “epic” fantasy games.

Is the RPG market big enough for them both? On the one hand, I’m not sure that it matters. They’re both out and I wouldn’t expect a whole lot of supplements for The Witcher RPG (though I won’t mind being surprised). If history is any indication, WFRP4 will have more supplements than the biggest guy at the gym. Certainly, there are loads of high-fantasy games and no shortage of designers trying to make it with new ones (or their own particular flavor of OSR games, for that matter).

In some ways, The Witcher RPG reminds me of the Artesia: Adventures in the Known World rulebook, a RPG that uses a pre-existing-ruleset-that-is-fascinating-but-more-complex-than-I-really-want-to-run to bring to life a fantasy setting born out of traditional fiction that I very much love.

Given that, I expect that The Witcher RPG will fill a similar role in my collection–an RPG that is fun to read but that I’ll probably never run.

Shadowrun Cortex Prime, Part IV: Sorcery

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For the previous post in this series, click here.

I’m admittedly skipping around here, but I thought that perhaps the next subject to tackle would be Magic in the Shadowrun/Cortex Prime hack. The way I figure it, some of you will determine whether the hack as a whole is worthwhile based on how I handle this topic (as well as the Matrix and Cyber-/Bioware). So I’ll try to save you some time in making that evaluation by somewhat frontloading that information (if Part IV can fairly be called frontloading).

Admittedly, I struggled a bit in figuring out what I thought was a good way to handle all of the aspects of Shadowrun magic (particularly sorcery and conjuration) in a single roll of dice, which is, of course, essential to the efficiency of the Cortex Prime system, one of the things that I love about it. In the end, I decided to resort to the following rule mod:

New Rule Mod: Multiple Effect Dice
Some tasks may require the use of multiple effect dice; these are marked with Limits denoting the additional required or optional uses of effect dice after the first. When additional effect dice are required or are optional, the failure to assign an effect die to one of those “slots” means there is no effect associated with that slot. In other words, effect dice that could be or must be assigned after the first do not get a free d4 effect if there is no die to assign to the slot. If the only effect die available is assigned to an optional slot, the character may receive the free d4 as the effect die for the primary slot.

This rule mod, I think, handles a number of issues, as you’ll see. It allows Drain to be addressed in the same roll that establishes the success of the spell (without resorting to Consequences, which I wanted to keep free) and gives those wizkids with plenty of dice to their pool something to do with those dice (while consquently putting some pressure on magic usage that has some mechanical “balancing” effect, I hope).

Sorcery
Sorcery is good, old-fashioned spell-slinging. Rather than resort to the categories of spells in the actual Shadowrun ruleset, I’ve elected a more flexible approach. Spells may be used to accomplish the following: make attacks, create/enhance/diminish assets or complications, or take actions to overcome obstacles. The following is always true of a use of Sorcery:

Dice Pool: The dice pool consists of an Approach (appropriate to the type of spell effect), the Sorcery skill, the character’s Magical aspect (to be discussed in a later post), any applicable assets, Signature Assets or specializations.

Inherent SFX/Limits:
Drain: A character using Sorcery takes either Stress or Trauma. If the primary effect die is equal to or less than the Magician’s Magic Aspect, the Drain is taken as Stress. If the primary effect die is greater than the Magician’s Magic Aspect, the Drain is taken as Trauma. The Magician may assign a second effect die to reduce the Drain suffered, reducing the Stress or Trauma by one step for each step in the die assigned (i.e., d4 = 1 step, d6 = 2 steps, etc.)
Additional Effects: Additional effects of spells should be created as Complications resulting from the defender’s roll. For instance, a fireball might set an enemy on fire.

Suggested Complications:
Auras: A magical afterglow remains in the wake of spells cast by a magician. Casting a spell can create an “Aura” Complication on the location that can be used by any character with Astral Perception to gain information about or track the character who cast the spell. The asset created is created in the usual manner of complications. The complication can be reduced by further sorcery or dissipates at one step per hour.
Side Effects: Unintended side-effects of spells–inspired by the spell’s true purpose, of course, make excellent Complications. Think of Harry Dresden accidentally setting fire to, well, lots of stuff when he uses combat magic (not the same setting, I know, but still a great example.)

Sustaining Sorcery:
          Without the intervention of some additional force, a spell’s effects (but not the complications it produces) dies after the turn in which it is cast. Whether a particular spell can be sustained (attach spells should not be sustainable under most circumstances) is up to the GM, but the following are ways to extend a spell’s effect:
Concentration: A magician can sustain a spell through focus, keeping the spell active for as long as the magician suffers a “Concentration” Complication equal to the spell’s primary effect die. When the spell’s effect ends, so does the Complication.
Foci: a Sustaining Focus Signature Asset will sustain a spell effect equal to its rating. See Signature Assets.
Metamagic: The proper Metamagic can be used to sustain a spell effect. See Signature Assets.
Spirit Aid: A summoned spirit may sustain a spell effect up to its rating as a service. See Conjuration.

Counterspelling: By spending a turn defending his comrades from magical harm, a magician may allow nearby companions to add the magician’s Sorcery die to their rolls to defend against magical attacks or effects directed against them.

Cortex Prime Shadowrun, Part III: Distinctions as Fate’s Aspects

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For the previous post in this series, click here.

Distinctions in Cortex Prime already function in a similar manner to Fate’s Aspects. Both have the capacity to help a character: in Cortex Prime, an applicable Distinction that provides some advantage to a character is added to the player’s dice pool; in Fate the player may spend a Fate Point to “invoke” an Aspect and add +2 to a roll’s result. Likewise, both can provide a hinderance as well: a player in Cortex can use a Distinction to add a d4 to the opposing dice pool and gain a Plot Point; a player can compel an Aspect in Fate to have some inconvenient event occur to the character (or have the character make some decision that makes sense for the character but results in misfortune) to gain a Fate Point.

While I love the idea of Aspects in Fate, the use of the Fate Point Economy to drive them–the necessity of spending a Fate Point to invoke an Aspect in particular–has always irked me a bit. I must acknowledge that this is a personal issue and not really a design flaw of the Fate System. The Fate Point Economy provides some very desireable benefits: it gives some mechanical balance to the game, means that (as in conventional narrative) a character’s traits don’t always come into play, and, most important, it forces players to resort to compels to use their Aspects beneficially at later points. This last factor both helps the gamemaster in a narrative game by giving cues and assistance in driving the story forward with complications that are sensible and meaningful to the players and adds interesting, spontaneous and unexpected knots to the conflict that simply could not have been planned. It is this last factor, which meshes well with the Powered By the Apocalypse mantra that the GM should “play to see what the characters do” (or perhaps it’s “play to see what happens to the characters;” I don’t recall perfectly offhand), that I very much want to capture in my Cortex Prime Shadowrun ruleset.

By design, the Cortex Prime system sidesteps my complaints about Aspects and the Fate Point Economy–Cortex Prime’s Plot Points are used differently and are not required to invoke Distinctions under normal circumstances but still provide incentive for players to complicate the story by reference to their character’s Traits.

With a very simple modification, we can make Distinctions even more like Fate’s Aspects and underline a grittier tone for the game (perfect for cyberpunk, but probably at home in just about any setting I’d be wont to run a game in).

That modification is this: Instead of a d4, when a Distinction (which I’m going to go ahead and just call “Aspects” in the CP Shadowrun ruleset) is used to gain a Plot Point, that Distinction/Aspect adds its full die do the opposing pool. So, if I have the Aspect Street Samurai d10, it will sure give me that extra oomph to take down mooks like a hot knife through butter, but it also gives me an opportunity to make my supposed adherence to Bushido matter in the game.

I think that this practice also fits well with gritty fantasy (whether or not combined with cyberpunk a la Shadowrun). In fact, it reminds me greatly of heroes of Celtic myth–there’s always a weakness, always some downside that accompanies greatness. Players will (and should) think twice about whether they really want to have that Street Samurai d10 Aspect. Yep, it’ll help you be a combat monster, but is the cost ultimately worth it? This kind of mechanically-supported and inherent game balance goes a long way for me.

You’ll see more about how Aspects will be assigned (and change) when we get to conversations about character generation and growth. For now, though, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on this relatively minor but far-reaching modification to the Cortex System.