Welcome Cortex and Cortex-Adjacent Fans!
This is Cam, creator and director of Magic Vacuum Design Studio. January 2017 is a month of new migration and planning after MVDS came together at the end of 2016. We’re still ironing out some wrinkles, but I’m pleased to have this site up and running. Soon, we’ll put up a link to enter your email address to our Kickstarter alert mailing list. In the meantime, you can follow us on Facebook or Twitter using the clever little widgets at the bottom of the page.
Cam,
I sent the following as an e-mail, but in case the wrong e-mail was post on MWP webpage, I am also sending this as a comment on your web page. And yes, the e-mail address in this comment is an actual one I use.
I hadn’t seen anything for Firefly RPG in some time, so I decided to take a look online to see what’s up. I was surprised to see Margaret Weis had retired from RPG back in December, but was glad to hear an accomplished developer as yourself was taking the reigns starting in January. I got your e-mail from her web page.
The main reason I’m writing is that it appeared your website went up late Dec 2016 or early Jan 2017 with the statement that, “January 2107 of new month of migration and planning…” Then nothing. No updates. Nothing. I would love to see some of your ideas for the direction of Cortex under your company, plans for settings (fantasy, modern, sci-fi, etc.), goals, etc. When you do post updates, I would love to see something for player input, especially if you release developmental/play-test materials, kind of like what the DnD 5e and What’s OLD is NEW (WOIN) systems did.
I don’t plan to take up too much of your time; however, if I had input for you, it would be to look long-range to reshape Cortex in one core system for all the settings you plan to work on. I don’t know your plans (as mentioned above, no updates on your web page), but having something that is compatible with the big three: Fantasy, Modern, and Sci-Fi, such as WOIN has done, is something I feel would help support a system. This is why I love systems like FATE (Firefly’s version of Cortex feels like it was built on top of FATE), WOIN, GURP, and Cypher systems.
A few more quickies…
– While Leverage and Firefly approach rolls differently, I prefer having six attributes over three attributes. It offers more flexibility.
– Using Leverage as a starting point, drop Alertness (use Notice skill instead).
– Replace Alertness with a social based skill such as Presence, or Charisma.
– However, I prefer the larger skill set and Distinctions of Firefly over the narrow skill set and Talents of Leverage.
– I like how vehicles and spaceship are treated as characters using attributes, distinctions, etc. However, I think I would prefer a few more attributes for vehicle and spaceships as well, at a minimum add a Maneuverability or Handling attribute.
As I mentioned, I didn’t want to take up too much of your time, but also wanted to pass on a few things from my point of view. I’m looking forward to seeing the next incarnation of Cortex, I think I saw you planned to call it Cortex Prime. I like it.
Take care,
Dennis
I sent you an email in response, but the short version: I think you’re going to like Cortex Prime. All of those features you’re asking about are modular options within the overall Cortex Prime framework. Playtesting and previews are all handled via my Patreon but I’ll be posting more updates here once the Kickstarter is live.
–Cam