This post should have been titled: “Cortex’s Contests as Sequential Bayesian Games with Behavioral Strategies.” It was a bit much, so I left the Bayesian part out.
Bronze Rulz!–Create Advantages, Everywhere (Almost)
This post looks at Fate’s Create an Advantage through the lens of other rulesets, then loops back to Fate and the sad condition outnumbered Big-Bads.
Theory Thursday–Success or Failure? Yes
Cortex Prime changes the very concepts of success and failure, there’s a cognitive science theory that can prove it, and a few visuals are all that’s needed to show how.
Bronze Rulz!–Bronze-Plated Crafting, Cortex Style
After trying to hack Fate for crafting and nearly breaking it, I re-evaluated my expectations, and jumped off the Fate hacking ship onto the Cortex lifeboat, with a sketch of a crafting mod, that won’t break anything (hopefully).
Peter’s Principle*–Hum(e)an NPCs
Improvising NPCs with Apocalypse World’s motto—“Name everyone, make everyone human”—David Hume’s philosophy, and Cortex Prime’s ruleset. What could go wrong?
Monkeying Monday–Emergent Gameplay (NPC Edition)
A go-to game design move leverages PC-to-PC backstory for “emergent gameplay,” but there’s a possible alternative based on PC-to-NPC relations that may complement it or suit some players better.
Apocalypse/Cortex–A Conversation
This post explores how Apocalypse World and Cortex disrupt the old “let’s just role-play this!” attitude slightly differently, and how to use these differences to enrich roleplay.
Fate/Cortex–Relationships, Affiliations, and Narrative Support
A Skill-list option from Fate Condensed solves a minor Cortex issue and yields a solid let’s-try-Cortex-out build for Fate folks as a byproduct.
Theory Thursday–Game Theory Storytelling: The Stag Hunt
Game Theory is not really about games, but it’s about interactions and you can mine it for good drama—-here with a game-theory favorite, and it’s not the Prisoner’s Dilemma
Fiddling Friday–Fate Dice, Less (Often)
This post offers guidelines to to get a lot out of the Skill pyramid, the Adjective Ladder, and Fate points, without breaking too much the narrative flow with pesky dice rolls—and call them “Dice-less Rules” because why not. But it’s not a hack. Promise.
The Polverine 