The Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game introduced us to a new rule set for the Cortex Plus engine; the Cortex Heroic rules. The rules were simple, straight forward and narrative, which helped facilitate stories based on their source material- namely, comic books.
In this game, players create a dice pool from their skills, powers, a narrative descriptor called “Distinctions” and a highly situational trait called an “Affiliation.” These last two seemed to cause a bit of confusion among players and GMs.
Distinctions are familiar if you’ve played Fate before; they’re a word or phrase that describes some aspect of your character. Something like “Berserker Rage” can be a benefit to your character in combat, but can become a hindrance in social situations. The player makes their argument why their trait either helps them out in that immediate roll or if it’s a setback, and they get some kind of benefit later on.
Affiliations were described as measuring your character’s ability to work well alone, with a partner or with a team. This seemed to confuse early players and GM’s, particularly because if, for some reason, you were with others, but couldn’t accept their help, you may be technically alone… ok, maybe it was a little confusing.
This rule didn’t really strike me as confusing, but more unnecessary than anything else. A hero or villain doesn’t necessarily lose or increase their capability just because another hero joins him and his ward on their nightly patrols. If they really can’t seem to manage more than one other hero tagging along, couldn’t they just take a Distinction like “Dynamic Duo”? This would allow them a bonus when they have their trusty sidekick around and could call for a setback when one or more other heroes decide to team up.
“To Me My Next-Men” could be a Distinction for those better with their team or “Doesn’t Play Well With Others” could suit the loner. The idea of situational Affiliations just strikes me as a little unrealistic, but more than anything kind of redundant.
What I propose is replacing Affiliation (Solo, Buddy, Team) with Attribute (Body, Mind, Spirit). The change would more clearly define what Attribute to roll in any given situation; if you’re punching the BBEG, roll Body. If you have to figure out the master criminal’s riddle to defuse the bomb, roll Mind or if you need to charm the guard to let you past the checkpoint, roll Spirit.
The change would remove the Watcher’s ability to change the scene and therefore your Affiliation die, but may still allow some narrative wiggle room if, for example, your group would prefer to use Mind for your character to continue running a marathon with willpower alone long after their body has run out of juice. Or perhaps your character could substitute Spirit for Mind to simulate using their strength or purity of spirit resist a demon attempting to mind control them.
For more inspiration on how you can tweak the system, check out the Cortex Hackers Guide. Although this hack didn’t make it into the book, there are plenty of other ideas in there. These kinds of changes show how versatile the system can be and even though the Marvel Heroic line is no more, it will live on as Cortex Plus Heroic, and I for one can’t wait to see what they do with it!
Alex Montoya
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