Cortex plus Rosemont Bay (Cortex Plus, Drama-Variante)

Finally, the System

Now that we've announced that Rosemont Bay will be built using the Drama flavor of Cortex Plus, we can talk a lot more specifically about the game mechanics. Over the next couple of days we'll fill you in on the ways that Rosemont Bay will be similar or different to out-of-the-box Cortex Plus Drama.

If you're not familiar with the basic dice mechanic of Cortex Plus, it's very simple: your character - referred to in Rosemont Bay as a Lead - has a number of different types of traits, each rated with a particular die type, ranging from d4 at the low end to d12 at the high end. When your Lead is attempting to overcome a Test or win a Contest, you'll pick out a set of appropriate traits, roll the dice associated with them, and pick two dice to add together. If you beat your opponent's die roll, you succeed.

Rosemont Bay has three major categories of traits: Drives, Assets, and Resources. In this update we'll talk a little about Drives - the traits that motivate your Lead and provide the core of every die roll.
Drives

There are two types of Drives: Values and Relationships. Values are ideas or beliefs that your Lead is, well, driven by. Relationships are just what they sound like - a connection to another character, either another Lead or a Feature (a major NPC).

Every Rosemont Bay Lead has the same six Values: LOVE, POWER, REPUTATION, RESPONSIBILITY, REVENGE, and TRUTH. A low die rating means that that particular Value isn't a major motivation for your Lead, while a high Value is a primary driving factor for your Lead's decisions. Precisely how your Lead feels about each Value is defined by a Value Statement, a short sentence or phrase that expresses how that Value motivates you. For example, let's say we have a witch named Angie. Angie might express her REVENGE Value like this:
REVENGE is best served over and over again. d10

Your Lead will start the series with a Relationship with each other Lead, and possibly some Relationships with Features (depending on choices you make during Pathways, Rosemont Bay's character creation system). Relationships work just like Values - they have a die rating that defines how strong the Relationship is, and a Relationship Statement that tells us exactly how your Lead feels about the other person - love, hate, jealousy, protectiveness, or whatever else you can think of. Let's say that Angie has a Relationship with her fellow Lead, a reluctant vampire named Barney. Here's what that trait might look like:
If I can't have BARNEY then no-one can. d12

As mentioned before, the core of every die roll in the game consists of one Value and one Relationship (you'll probably roll several other dice as well, from your Assets and Resources, but we'll talk about that in another update). Pick the Value and Relationship that seem most appropriate to the situation. If Angie wants to get revenge on Barney for his latest rejection of her, it doesn't matter whether she plans to shoot him, whisper lies into his girlfriend's ear, or cast a hex on him - she'll roll d10 from her REVENGE Value and d12 from her BARNEY Relationship.

You should always be able to find a Value to use in your roll - they're pretty broad - but what if you don't have an appropriate Relationship? You have a couple of options. You can spend a Plot Point - a currency that you use to alter the story in your Lead's favor - to establish a new Relationship rated at d6, or you can get a new temporary Relationship at d4 for free.

There are more details, but these are the very basics of building a Rosemont Bay dice pool. Next time we'll talk a bit about Assets, and how they differ in some ways from the Assets in vanilla Cortex Drama.

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Project Update #18: Assets

Posted by Topher Gerkey​

A little over 60 hours left in the KS, so let's push to make at least some of the stretch goals happen! In the meantime, here, let's talk about how the game works again.
Assets are the second big category of traits that each Lead has. If Drives are the "why" of your character, Assets can be thought of as the "who" and "how" - they represent your Lead's qualities and capabilities. In Rosemont Bay there are two types of Assets: Distinctions and Abilities (some of you who are familiar with Smallville may be wondering about Gear - Rosemont Bay doesn't use Gear, but there's another trait that absorbs some of its functionality, which I will talk about later today).

Distinctions

Distinctions are the things about your character that are...well, distinct! Inherent traits, personality quirks, special training or skills, professions, social positions, and many more qualities can be represented by Distinctions. Some examples might be Police Officer, Charismatic, Hacker, Bulging Muscles, Gossipmonger, or Family Reputation. Basic distinctions work just like in vanilla Cortex Plus Drama - they are rated anywhere from d4 to d12 and you can roll them into your dice pool if they are appropriate to the action you're taking. Each Distinction also has from one to three Triggers that can help your Lead out in various ways, by giving you extra plot points, letting you reroll or step up dice when you roll, letting you step down your opponent's dice, or letting you shift the narrative by declaring some fact to be true (among many other examples). Rosemont Bay will come with a big list of standard Distinctions and include tools to help you come up with your own unique ones, and if funded, some of the chapters in the Rosemont Bay Companion will also add new Distinctions.
The game also includes two special subtypes of Distinctions. The first type is the Supernatural Distinction. If you're familiar with Smallville, these work very similarly to that game's Heritages. Basically, Supernatural Distinctions are just like normal Distinctions, but represent more outlandish traits and qualities. They include examples like Vampire, Ghost, Witch, Werewolf, Psychic, and the like. You can roll these Distinctions into your dice pool anytime you're doing something related to your supernatural nature. Each Supernatural Distinction also has a list of related Limits and Abilities to help your character fit into her theme. The examples in the core rules are somewhat generic so they can fit a wide variety of character concepts, but some of them will be expanded in the Companion if it gets funded - for example, the core Witch trait will work for any type of witchy character, but if you'd like to be more specific, the "Book of Shadows" chapter of the Companion will offer Distinctions like White Witch, Green Witch, or Blood Witch to help make your Lead better match her concept.
The other subtype is the Role Distinction. Your Lead can only have one of these optional Distinctions at a time, and they are unique - no two Leads can share the same Role (with one exception: the Supercouple Role). These Roles help to define how your character fits into the series, encouraging you to play as a classic archetype of gothic horror and/or soap operas. Examples might include The Ingenue, The Cad, The Femme Fatale, The Bad Seed, The Rake, The Evil Twin, The Quirky Detective, and many more. These Distinctions work more like the ones from Cortex Plus Action, allowing you to choose whether it will be helpful or harmful to your Lead - you can choose to roll the Distinction's die as a d8 (helping you to get a higher total) or as a d4 (increasing your risk of rolling a 1, but in exchange you get a plot point). Each Role also has a single associated Trigger that works just like the Triggers in regular Distinctions.

Abilities

Abilities represent the supernatural powers that some Leads will have. Your vampire's ability to turn into a bat, your witch's hexing spells, and your psychic's ability to look into a crystal ball and see the future are all Abilities. Abilities are rated in dice just like any other trait, and you can roll them into your dice pool whenever you use them to help your action. Additionally, Abilities have special effects - you can pay a plot point to activate them and perform some special action in the game. For example, a werewolf with the Claws ability might have a special effect that allows him to pay a plot point to tear apart some physical object, like a door.
You don't have to have a Supernatural Distinction to take an Ability! For instance, you might want to have someone with a single psychic power, but not want your character's whole theme to be about being a psychic. That said, each Supernatural Distinction will list all the Abilities commonly associated with that archetype.
Rosemont Bay will come with a list of common Abilities and sample special effects, and the Companion will add some new ones.

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