Kickstarter Spotlight

If you're reading this Newsletter, you probably don't need me to tell you who Cam Banks is - he's the talented RPG designer behind a ton of cool Dragonlance stuff, many of Margaret Weis Production's Cortex RPGs, Feng Shui 2, Unknown Armies 3, and others.

Cam, having wrested the Cortex system from its former owners, has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the newest iteration of the system: "Cortex Prime: A Multi-Genre Modular Roleplaying Game." Echoing such recent successes as Fate Core, Cortex Prime will provide an updated version of the familiar Cortex Plus game system along with a number of setting toolboxes to allow groups to use the generic system in a setting that appeals to them.

As always, we reached out to the Kickstarter campaign creator, and Cam was generous enough with his time to answer our questions.

Newsletter: Mechanically, how does Cortex Prime differ from Cortex Plus?

Cam Banks: Prime takes all of the various Cortex Plus games, which had several thematic and mechanical differences from one another, and brings them together as a complete set of options and modular rules packages. It does the same to Classic Cortex (from Supernatural, BSG, etc) in such a way that you can swap out elements of all of those games with older ones, or use new variations I'm planning to implement that are a response to years and years of working with this system.

Newsletter: Along the same lines, on your campaign page, you "promise[] backward compatibility with an eye toward an exciting future[.]" Will Cortex Plus games be directly translatable to Cortex Prime, or will GMs need to do some conversion work?

Cam Banks: There will be some work in a few cases, mostly in terms of rewriting specific traits or triggers to match the language that's being used in Cortex Prime, but for the most part you should be able to play older games straight from Prime. The swiftest translation might come between Firefly or Leverage, but in all I think even Smallville fans will see a lot to use in Prime and continue to be able to support the specific mechanics they like if they choose to.

Newsletter: To a large degree, your rulebook and Kickstarter campaign format seem similar to the very successful Fate Core campaign that Fred Hicks ran a few years back (and Fred is credited on your campaign page). Was the Fate Core campaign an inspiration or model for yours? What would you say that you're doing differently?

Cam Banks: It was, because I've known Fred for more than two decades and we're of a similar mindset when it comes to design. For Prime, I was also inspired by some of the success of games like 7th Sea, Apocalypse World 2nd edition, and my own experience on Feng Shui 2 and Unknown Armies 3.

Newsletter: Where does the name Magic Vacuum come from?

Cam Banks: My wife heard a story from a friend once about a guy who was tripping out in the back seat of a car while the friend drove him around waiting for him to come down from the acid hit. The guy in the back was having a three-way conversation with his own hands, who were (according to him) two characters called Seth and the Magic Vacuum. We love this story and it's become an in-joke in our family now for many many years, so when the time came to come up with a name for the company, Magic Vacuum Design Studio was among the first we considered.

The "Cortex Prime: A Multi-Genre Modular Roleplaying Game" Kickstarter campaign runs through May 29. Head over and check it out.

(In the interest of full disclosure: yr. humble editor is a backer of this Kickstarter Campaign.)

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And, Venger Satanis reviewed "50 Shades of Vorpal," a parody RPG of old school dungeon crawling.

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Have a good week, everyone.

• Iustum
  Newsletter Editor