Running Dune

I've gotten a group together on Roll20 and have started running a Dune campaign using my Cortex Plus hack.  The four players have been really great and enthusiastic for both the system and the universe in which we're playing.  Two players are old friends, one is a guy that I met on the Cortex Plus Google+ group, and the other I met on Roll20 and is playing from Mexico.

Three of the four players have not had Cortex Plus experience, but are learning quickly.  The finer points of Assets and the importance of acquiring Plot Points will be their next big milestones in learning the system.  It helps that they like the idea of the system and are enjoying the narrative power that the system gives them.  I did the "Ask the players questions" thing during the first session and the player didn't know what I was asking - she didn't know the answer to the question that I was asking (that's generally the GM's job to create that).  When I explained that I was asking HER to help create that part of the story, she was bowled over and went with it.  It was great to watch her enjoy the new-found freedom that CP gives players, over less narrative systems.

It's been challenging coming up with the plot-line and making sure to incorporate all of the things about the characters that are important to them, but it's coming along.  And there's a lot of pressure to present my most beloved fictional universe well in the RP setting, but I have a general plot-arc in mind and it's been running pretty smoothly and everyone has been having a good time. The group has agreed that, while the plot starts on Caladan, they want to be RPing on Arrakis and have that experience sooner than later.

Also, because this is the first time that my hack is being used, to my knowledge, the players are also my play-testers.  Already, I have several ideas for creating a second edition of the game.  Mentat calculations, created in the vein of a Leverage-style wrap-up flashbacks, and firming up distinctions top that list.  I'm also thinking of adding a House creation system as well as a House-against-House system akin to the nation against nation system from the Cortex Plus Hacker's Guide.

If you're interested in following our RP journey, I'm chronicling it HERE on Obsidian Portal.

Loving RPG Settings

I've loved role-playing games since I was a kid.  I've also always had a great imagination and constantly wanted to use it to mentally transport me to fictional places and times and explore them.  It didn't take long to see that one fed very easily into the other.

In essence, an RPG is like a novel where you see the world and its history, but the actual story is yours to create as a GM and as players.  The RPG will, of course, also have rules to aid said GM and players to adventure in that world.  On no few occasions, I've found myself either liking the setting but not the mechanics or enjoying the setting and the mechanics but could not find any players to play it.

So in my years of gaming, I've collected more than my share of RPG core rules books and sourcebooks.  If I had to put a number on it, I'd say that of the gaming books that I own, I've played/employed 30, maybe 40, percent of them.  And when I bought them I intended to try to play perhaps 70 percent with that last 30 purchased just for their settings.

We're doing some basement remodeling here at home, which has necessitated moving my RPG books out of their bookcases and onto the floor temporarily, so I took a few pictures that I'm putting in this post.  Over the years, I've lost more than a few games to damage, a loan that never returned, or that simply got lost in the shuffle, but I've done my very best to keep what I've bought.

Cortex Plus Dune RPG Hack

I'd posted this a bit ago to the Cortex Plus G+ group, but figured that this was a good opportunity to open it to a potentially wider audience.  Here you go straight from the document's intro:

Dune, by Frank Herbert, is possibly the best novel in all of science fiction.  Fans like myself wished for a good system to come along to properly represent the things that we loved about the novel, but the one highly anticipated try fell short and went out of business not long after putting out an unfinished and unplayable core book.  I’m looking at you, Last Unicorn Games.  So here is my best shot.  Cortex Plus Action Firefly is a great base.  The Cortex Plus Firefly RPG is required to use this hack.

The Skills section is modified to better reflect the Duneiverse.  I also added Strategize to cover the goings on in Dune from the politics of the Imperium to the plans of assassins to open war on the battlefield.In creating this hack, I went through the Dune novel and designed a new Distinction every time that I saw something in the book that wasn’t adequately covered by the Firefly system.  Any Firefly Distinctions that the GM decides will work in the game are allowed, though you may want to change their names to be more “Duneish.”

I added a category of Distinctions - Advanced.  The idea behind them is that they have a prerequisite of one other Distinction in order to take on that Advanced Distinction.  The prerequisite Distinction doesn’t need to be maintained, but the skills that got the character to that point in the first place may be integral in being successful in the Advanced Distinction.  The Advanced Distinctions are also positions of high responsibility.  If your character is interested in taking on those Distinctions, they have to understand that they have become more duty-bound and less autonomous than they were before taking it.  Your GM may even require the entire campaign to change directions from the characters being out in the field, so to say, to being the leaders of the people who are out in the field.  Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, as the saying goes.

The last section - Special Rules For Dune - is just that.  Some things that are important or prominent in Dune weren’t easily represented using the standard Cortex Plus Action ruleset.  Poison is now just another weapon in a killer’s arsenal.  Body-shields are another form of armor, so to speak, with their own drawbacks.  And The Voice - without which a Dune RPG wouldn’t be the same - is represented, but with serious limitations to keep its use from getting out of control and dominating the game.  It was, after all, a very subtle and rarefied skill even in the book.

Well, there you go.  I hope that you enjoy playing this Cortex Plus hack!

Dune RPG Hack For Cortex Plus