For the last two years or so, I’ve been running a couple of campaigns using the Margaret Weis (soon to be Signal Fire) Cortex system.  the first campaign was in the Firefly/Serenity universe, and used the original Cortex rules set (Cortex 1.0, if you will…)  The other is a Battlestar Galactica campaign in the newer (and I think, improved) version of the rules.

The Cortex general rules set came out last year, and is a setting-free presentation of the rules set.  The design of the book itself is minimalist and neither lends nor detracts from the material itself.  The cover is a simple, abstract design that looks like neural ganglia in blue on black (green on black if you got a GenCon pre-release like mine.)

The rules are simple and the system is one of the few that, like Storyteller by White Wolf, are designed to enhance story and character, rather than as a tactical minis game with character elements bolted to it (D&D, any version…)  Character creation is quick and easy, and my group has been able to whip up a decently fleshed out idea in under 20 minutes.  The basic mechanic is an attribute die+skill die vs. a difficulty number (usually between 3 and 11, but sometimes going much higher.)  Added can be a die from a trait or a complication (the complications add to your difficulty.)

Like D&D, Cortex gives you multiple dice to roll, which is both fun and provides an interesting set of probability curves.  (I personally hate the flat curve of a single d20.)  The dice are d2-d12 (no d20, but you could bolt those on, quite easily, if you had to have them.)

Combat can be very quick and brutal, and Cortex makes heavy use of plot points — with which you can cut damage, improve rolls, or directly influence the story.  They are meant to be given freely if the players are hitting character points, aiding in the direction of the story, bring food to the game, what have you.  I even give ’em out for good one-liners.

Vehicle and creature design are done as per characters, and originally lend a nice “ship as character” quality in the Serenity version of the system.  In science-fiction series, often the ship is character in and of itself ( Enterprise might not be sentient in Star Trek, but she is very much a character of her own, often providing motivation to Captain Kirk, just as Serenity is Mal Reynold’s love interest in Firefly.)  With scaling rules, there are personal/character scale, a vehicle scale, and a capital ship scale, but the stats are the same for person, your specialized Trans Am or beloved fighter, and your big-@ss starship.  There are rules for kludging together intermediate scales for superhero and fantasy campaigns, as well.

The main rulebook provides a few campaign ideas, but no sample adventure for the reader.  I did not find this a problem, as I rarely if ever run modules or adventures, but for first timers or other players, this might seem an oversight.

Overall, the system pulls a 4 out of 5 clan badges from me, with the style of the book pulling 2.5.  It’s not pretty, per se, but Cortex is well worth the money for someone looking to use a simple set of mechanics designed to enhance role playing.