Anyone interested in exploring a strange new alien world in the vein of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom, John Norman's Gor, Robert E. Howard's Almuric, Lin Carter's Callisto, or Kenneth Bulmer's Scorpio? I intend to create a custom hack of Cortex Plus for the game. "Episodes At The End Of Time" (Cortex Plus Hacker's Guide, pp. 109-15) would form the basis for a less-crunchy option, re-skinning Firefly would provide a more-crunchy one. Characters would begin on their own, in separate circumstances and separate parts of the world, and might never meet up. One thought under consideration is the option to play supporting characters in other players' stories, or exclusively play supporting characters rather than creating a hero of your own.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:27, Mon 17 Aug 2015.

Sounds interesting.  Have you seen this rule set?
http://artikid.altervista.org/files/Moons_zoon.pdf

There is this as well.
https://sites.google.com/site/...tredirects=0&d=1

Have seen Planets Of Peril, Swords Of Cydoria, Exiled On Eris, Under The Moons Of Zoon, Realms Beyond The Perisphere, and Swords Of Almuric. None ultimately appealed to me, hence my decision to use Cortex Plus.

Is there a free PDF for Cortex Plus.  I will no long buy rulebooks for any game I don't have the rules for, here on Rpol.  Twice I have spent $30-$40 on rulebooks.  To only have the games die a early death.  Thus making the rulebooks useless.

This message was deleted by the user at 23:06, Tue 18 Aug 2015.

Opening Salvo for Dragon Brigade is the only free Cortex Plus product I know of (The Quickstart Job for Leverage is no longer free, it seems). There is no single flavor of Cortex Plus, even within the broad categories of Action, Drama, and Heroic, hence the Hacker's Guide. They expand Dragon Brigade further in The Affair Of The Orb, an adventure which I just picked up today, but the rules have yet to be 100% completed.

 ~ http://www.drivethrurpg.com/pr...rigade-Opening-Salvo
 ~ http://www.drivethrurpg.com/pr...of-the-Orb-Adventure
This message was last edited by the user at 18:50, Wed 19 Aug 2015.

Thank's, I have an account there.  I will have to check it out.

Count me in!

I'm torn between Dragon Brigade's simplicity, Firefly's crunchiness, and "Episodes At The End Of Time"'s uniqueness. EATEOT uses five Styles (Force, Grace, Subtlety, Resilience, Planning — how you act upon things) and five Arenas (War, Another, Crowds, Lore, Place — what things you act upon). I would tweak those slightly and maybe add a third collection of traits called Agendas (Romance, Honor, Power, Acclaim, etc. — why you are acting), but at this point I'm still working those out. Styles are kinda like FATE Accelerated's approaches, with Arenas and Agendas adding further nuance to that notion.

Sounds good to me, when do we start? :)

My plan was to run several concurrent solo games, with the potential for PCs to eventually meet, so really any time after I finish my set-up.
This message was last edited by the user at 14:58, Thu 10 Sept 2015.

I know none of the game systems you mention, but I would love a Sword-and-Planet adventure!

Rising, Cortex Plus is fairly easy to learn. The Wikipedia entry gives a brief overview, and you can always grab the free quick-start (Dragon Brigade: Opening Salvo) linked to in msg #6 above.

 ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortex_Plus

EDIT: Just found a link to Opening Salvo on Scribd, if anyone lacks an account at DriveThruRPG or RPGNow and doesn't mind reading it online.

 ~ http://www.scribd.com/doc/133876575/Opening-Salvo
This message was last edited by the user at 22:23, Thu 10 Sept 2015.

Alyse:

I would be interested in this. I played in a face to face Firefly game for nine months. The system worked great.

The styles and arenas of Episodes At The End Of Time look interesting - and depending on the tweaks you make could best fit a sword and planet zeitgiest.

Planning seems particularly wrong to me for this genre. I could see cunning (or similar) as a better option.

I had the exact same thought about Planning. The styles roughly parallel FATE Accelerated's approaches, Planning being equivalent to Cautious. There is no direct FAE equivalent to Resilience, and EATEOT has no equivalent to Flashy and Quick.

I have run and played in a few short Cortex "hacks". The system seems flexible and robust enough to say copy the Fate Accelerated Approaches entirely.

I have been inspired by some of the hacks that Rob Donoghue has posted on his blog about Cortex.

http://walkingmind.evilhat.com/?s=cortex

Particularly of interest are "Index Card Tactics", "Levernatural" and "Two Guys With Swords".

I agree, "Levernatural" was quite interesting... as were the various Amber/not-Amber hacks. Nothing quite as fleshed out as the Fantasy Heroic D&D4e hack, though.

Yes. The Fanstay Heroic game in the Cortex Hacker's guide is much more detailed. I have played it in a small number of single session games.

I am definitely interested in playing a Sword and Planet game in this system.

Fantasy Heroic just didn't appeal to me. I want to avoid, not emulate, D&D.