Being a huge fan of the show, I have waited a long time for the role playing game core book to be released. Was it worth the wait? Indeed. Let’s have a look.

First let me say even if you are not a fan of the show there is a lot to offer for a horror type setting. Set in the modern day world lends itself to all those wonderful haunted places everyone has in their backyard. (Every county in the country seems to have the ‘Crybaby Bridge’ story.)

The heart of the system is Jamie Chambers Cortex system. Its simple, elegant and easy to learn. Because its highly adaptle to every situation that players can come up with, running it is a dream. Here are the basics.
Attributes are what you use as a base and add appriate modifers to. The six attributes are: Agility, strength, vitality, alertness, and intelligence. Some may complain that there is no charasima attribute to use for charming/intimaditing. Its not needed. Just use will plus the skill that fits the situation best.

So what are skills? They are special skills that enhance your characters attributes. For instance, you need to convince the bouncer to let you in the nightclub without a fight. You would combine will (attribute) and influence to beat a target number set by the GM. Now under the main skill you can also have specialties to enhance your skill even more. Such as, under influence you may have persuasion which shows that your character is a real charmer with people skills. You can be okay with a gun, good with a gun, or really good with a particular type of gun. For instance, you would use agility as the base then add the skill ranged weapons and finally if you a specific gun named under that it would replace the ranged weapon skill. The secondary skills are always going to be a little better than the general one. The Cortex system uses a step system. By that I mean a d2 step up to the die roll. Most rolls are between a d2 through a d12. (There are some cases where the number is higher but that’s rare.) Having a rank of d2 in something is really weak, a d6 average, and more than that and you are quite good at what you do. Because the system is so flexible, certain situations can easily increase or decrease the difficulties. Action difficulties range from easy to impossible. These target numbers can be alerted by situational modifiers, For instance, lets say you are trying to jump from roof top to roof top. I tell you that would be a formidable level action and the number would be 15 and 22 would be exceptional(this means it looks really good and there may be a added benefit, GM’s call). You hunter has agility 6+ the skill athletics d6 and the specialty jumping d10. You would add agility and jumping together. That’s still pretty hard to do so you tell the GM that you get a running start. The GM decides that is a good idea and tells you to step it a die bump. Now your specialty jumping just became a d12 instead.

Now a word on my favorite part. Plot points. Every hunter starts off with six of these little gems. They can be used to add to you die rolls for those sticky situations. Each point buys you a d2 before you role or 1 point after the roll. You can also use them to reduce damage, alter the story in small ways( for a point can I have remembered to load silver bullets instead?), and other things with the GM’s approval. You can earn more doing the course of the game by having good ideas, accomplishing difficult goals, team work, beating a difficult oppenet, or just by amusing the GM. You can not however, have more than 12 plot points at one time.

Next we have assets and complications. Although they can be used to either make things easier or more complicated by adding or subtracting from the die role, they are mainly there to add flavor to the character. For instance, the asset good natured. People take to you because you are friendly and warm. This helps to enhance that influence/persusion roll by adding the die level to the roll. It also helps describe your character personality. The other side of the coin is complications. Lets say you choose crude. This means you don’t know how to behave in public. You make bad inappropriate jokes or you just have bad manners in general. It would subtract from any roll needed in a social situation.

Now I would like to get away from the rules. Is this a good book? Yes. You will find haunted sites, creatures, and tons of useful advice on not only how to run this setting but any RPG. If you are the GM Jamie provides you with a wealth of sites and story ideas to get you going.

Recently, I ran a game I wrote of Supernatural at Con on the Cob where Jamie Chambers was the guest of honor. Along with this article you find the seminar I attended with him answering all of my questions as he explains the Cortex system. You will also be able to listen to the game I ran at the show as well and towards the end hear Jamie himself stop by and ask how its going. It ran quite well, thank you. I would like again to express my personal thanks to the man himself, Jamie Chambers. One heck of a nice guy.

Tags: ackles, chambers, cob, comments, con, cortex, cw, dice, game, gaming, jamie, jensen, monsters, on, paper, pen, played, playing, review, role, rpg, supernatural, system, tabletop, the

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