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Revision as of 02:10, 27 December 2013
Template:Infobox RPG
The Smallville Roleplaying Game was the first game using the Cortex Plus system, and is a Superhero Role-playing game which is designed to allow Clark Kent and Lois Lane to be played on almost equal terms. It does this by focussing on story and inter-personal conflict rather than raw power.[1] It won a Judge's Spotlight Award at the 2011 ENnies.[2]
The Setting
Template:See also There are two main ways to run the Smallville Roleplaying Game. First you can use the official Smallville setting; the main Smallville page is recommended if you are interested in canon for the TV series. Second, the life-path system in Smallville encourages you to create your own setting with themes related to those of the Smallville show. The example of character creation in the rulebook shows you how you can create Smallville itself using the character creation rules in the role-playing game and the season nine protagonists Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Chloe Sullivan, Tess Mercer, and General Zod.[3]
Life Paths
Character generation in the Smallville RPG is a collaborative process, with characters going through their lives together step by step and deciding how their histories are woven together. The process starts with their Origin (Rich, Ordinary, Gifted, Strange, and Alien or Metahuman), with each character establishing the very earliest statements of their values, and how important they hold them, how they relate to others, and any resources or powers they may have. This is all both written down and drawn by everyone on a large piece of paper, before everyone moves forward to their youth and develops their values (Duty, Glory, Justice, Love, Power and Truth), their relationships, and their powers and resources accordingly. This process involves creating the most important NPCs and locations in the setting as far as the characters are concerned and indicating how strongly the various PCs value them.
Each value and each relationship (with another player character or NPC is given a replacement statement whenever the value is changed, as well as a value - two characters with equal values on Power are very different if one has the statement "Power is a means to my ends" and the other has "I need Power to keep myself safe".
System
Smallville was the first iteration of Cortex Plus and is so far the only iteration of Cortex Plus Drama outside the generic Cortex Plus Hackers' Guide. This means that it's a roll-and-keep system where you roll the dice in the dice pool and keep your best two. Almost invariably you are rolling one Value and one Relationship - and you may roll other dice from other factors like preparation and powers. The two sides roll off, highest wins - and the loser can chose to give in (and narrate how they are defeated) or they can choose to keep fighting and take Stress (i.e. Damage). There are five different stress tracks (Afraid, Insecure, Injured, Exhausted and Angry) and too much in any of the stress tracks can overwhelm any character.
The most powerful move you can make in the Smallville RPG is to challenge either one of your relationships, or one of your values. This means that you think that you were wrong and are coming to a new understanding; you get to roll the dice three times rather than once in your dice pool but are using a smaller dice for the rest of the session.
Supplements
There have been two published supplements for the Smallville RPG before Margaret Weis Productions ended at the end of February 2013.[4] Those were Smallville: The High School Yearbook (for playing high school characters using Smallville) and Smallville: The Watchtower Report.
See Also
- Smallville
- Cortex Plus
- Marvel Heroic Roleplaying
- Cortex System