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No Attributes; Values
In Cortex K, characters are described not by what things they can do, but by what motivates them to do things. Each character has six Values; Duty, Glory, Justice, Love, Power, and Truth. Each is assigned a single die of varying size, d4 through d12. A short descriptive phrase is attached to each Value, indicating how the character feels about that particular concept. Zod’s d10 Value for Power, for example, is noted with the phrase “Kneel before Zod!” which makes his Drive for Power abundantly clear.
No Skills; Relationships
Instead of a list of skills, as seen in other Cortex System games, the Smallville RPG gives each PC a Relationship die with each other PC, and with the various NPCs in their lives. Like Values, these have a descriptive phrase attached, showing how the character feels about the other character in the Relationship. These are distinctly not reciprocal; A character named Pat can have a Relationship d12 with the phrase I love Chris with all my heart, but Chris might have in return a Relationship d4 with the phrase Pat is a creepy stalker! as its description. Angst for the characters and fun for their players will both ensue…
Going to the Dice
When players roll dice for their characters to take action, they choose the Drives (a Value and a Relationship) that are most at stake in the action. If Clark is trying to catch Lois as she falls off a window ledge, his player would pick up dice for his ‘Love’ Value and his ‘Lois’ Relationship. If Lois is snooping around, searching Jimmy Olsen’s cubicle at the Daily Planet, her player is trying to find the truth about something, so she would roll Truth. If she has a Relationship die with Jimmy Olsen, that would be her second die. Of course, if the ‘something’ she was trying to find out about was Clark Kent’s secret identity, her player might choose to roll her ‘Clark’ Relationship instead, since that’s what really matters.
Other Sources of Dice
A character’s skills, talents, tools, minions, and other details can be drawn on for extra dice in a test or conflict. These are broken down into Assets, which are either Distinctions or Abilities, and Resources, which are everything else. Distinctions and Abilities each have specific uses and sometimes specific penalties that apply when they are used, while Resources are generally a simple die-code representing the effect of that Resource on tests.
Superpowers!
Up to this point, the system could handle any soap opera or drama on TV (and will probably be re-purposed for campaigns of that sort almost immediately) – but the thing that makes Smallville different is superhuman Abilities. Paranormal, Kryptonian, meteor-infused, or who-knows-where-they-come-from capabilities belonging to characters are defined as Abilities. Each Ability a character possesses is given a die type, and has specific effects and limits associated with it. In addition, each Ability has a series of associated Special Effects that a character may have access to.
Plot Points
Plot Points are the meta-currency that makes the system run. Characters earn Plot Points from certain Distinctions, or from the use of various other abilities. Most Special Effects cost Plot Points to invoke. Clark Kent’s ‘Big-Hearted’ Distinction, for example earns him a Plot Point every time his player chooses to have Clark believe someone’s sob-story. That Plot Point can be spent later, to use a Special Effect of his Super-strength power to wield a car as a melee weapon, or a Special Effect of his Super-breath to freeze something solid.
Under the Hood
The lists of Distinctions and Abilities are very thorough, but the authors also give nice sections on how to create new ones – since the system is structured to replicate TV episodes rather than physics, it’s relatively easy to come up with what a new ability might be useful for in game terms. Plenty of advice and examples are given on how to modify and customize the provided Assets to suit your game's needs.
The Trouble Pool
The GM (called ‘Watchtower’ in these rules) has a pool of dice that grows and shrinks during the game, referred to as the Trouble pool. Whenever a PC rolls dice against some individual, group, condition, or force that has not been given fully-elaborated stats, the Trouble dice are rolled instead. Some Distinctions and Abilities add Trouble dice when used, others can subtract Trouble dice. The waxing and waning of the Trouble pool is a barometer for the level of tension in the episode, and provides a convenient way for Watchtower to let the story follow where the characters take it without needing to write up full sets of stats for every Extra, thug, and obstacle they might run into.
Stress
PCs who fail at a contest may suffer Stress. Stress is categorized into five types: Afraid, Angry, Exhausted, Injured, and Insecure. Each type is given a single die, which increases in size as more Stress is inflicted. The sting in this is that when someone contests against your character in a way that your current stress conditions can affect, they get to add your Stress die to their dice pool when they roll against you. In addition, some Distinctions and Abilities can manipulate the size of that die, up or down: For example, the ‘Vicious’ Distinction lets someone increase the size of your Injured Stress die by a step before rolling it against you.
Building a Campaign
Character creation is done in phases; rather like the ‘lifepath’ systems used in some other RPGs. Within each phase, connections are drawn between the Leads (PCs) and Features (NPCs), and new locations and people are added to the web of intrigue that forms the core of the players’ series. That web is actually diagrammed out on paper or on a white board, phase by phase; this is the most straightforward and clear presentation of how to develop a ‘relationship map’ that I have seen in any game, anywhere.
Since it’s done cooperatively between the players and Watchtower, the development of the setting and the creation of NPCs and their connections to the PCs all happens organically, right alongside PC creation. The running example throughout this chapter details the series protagonists and their situation at the midpoint of Season Nine of the show, as if they were being created from scratch as PCs.
Scene Structure
The Smallville RPG is played in distinct scenes, strongly replicating the structure of the TV show it emulates. Solid advice is given in the rulebook for how to set a scene, and when and how to end a scene and move to the next. For GMs not accustomed to using cinematic scene breaks, this advice is extremely valuable.
Growth
Leads develop from episode to episode via a pool of Growth dice, earned when their basic Drives are challenged, and which includes the largest Stress die the character receives each episode. At the end of each episode, each Lead is given a Tag Scene, which they can define as they like. During the Tag, the player demonstrates what change his or her Lead has gone through, and variously expends or rolls his Growth dice to gain new Special Effects, increase (or at least alter) his Drives, and if necessary rewrite his Drive's descriptive phrases. This accurately replicates the just-before-the-credits-roll epilogue scenes of TV shows, and allows the players to show what recent events mean to their Leads.
Episode Design
An episode of a TV show is more than just a bunch of scenes strung together. The chapter on episode design shows how Watchtower uses the relationship map created at the campaign’s start to generate ideas that will be interesting and challenging for the campaign’s Leads. It reads, appropriately enough, like a screenwriting handbook; it shows Watchtower how to identify conflicts between Leads, how to create Wedges to put pressure on those conflicts, and how to develop those Wedges into characters and situations that will drive the episode's action. Frequently used screenwriting techniques like the 'A-plot/B-plot' structure are explained as well. The chapter comes complete with the step-by-step construction of an Episode for the Season Nine characters, as an example of how to use the method.
Online Play
An entire chapter of the rulebook addresses methods of playing the game online, either in a chat-room format or via forum posts. This is a welcome addition, given that more and more ‘tabletop’ roleplaying these days is actually being done online, and it should make the game more appealing to the freeform roleplayers who are already playing Smallville-themed roles in the online environment.
Presentation
This review was written based on the pdf of the rules. The layout and the artwork (stills from the series, for the most part) are both excellent; the entire document has high production values. Presumably, the physical books will have equally high quality printing and binding. There are a few typos, here and there -- but nothing that makes anything particularly unclear or difficult to understand. They stand out more because of their contrast with the meticulous work surrounding them than because of any problems that they cause.
The ‘authorial voice’ addresses the reader directly, and has the feel of dialogue from the series; hip and modern, but literate – as befits a story about a young newspaper reporter. The book presents a lot of ideas which are quite different from traditional RPG fare, and it does a good job of explaining them without either being too abstruse or ‘talking down’ to the reader.
The Last Word To sum up; I recommend the Smallville RPG to any gamer who is a fan of the series, and to any gamer looking for a system that can 'do' a television show right. I expect to see the Smallville / 'Cortex K' rules adapted to run games inspired by everything from 'Kyle XY' and 'The X-Files' to 'Saving Grace' and 'House MD' -- they're that flexible, and that good.
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