Cortex Prime vs Ishanekon: World Shapers
Compare Cortex Prime and Ishanekon: World Shapers side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Cortex Prime | Ishanekon: World Shapers | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Universal | Universal |
| Play Style | Narrative, Modular, Collaborative, Toolkit, Roleplay-Heavy, Character-Driven, Tag-Based | Character Building, Crunchy, Tactical, Toolkit, Hackable, Open Source |
| Core Mechanic | Assemble a dice pool from trait sets (attributes, skills, relationships, etc.) rated d4–d12. Roll the pool, keep the two highest for your total vs. opposition, then choose an Effect Die from the remainder to determine magnitude. Plot Points let players add dice, activate abilities, or alter the narrative. Every mechanical element is a swappable mod. | Skill Check — roll d10, add your level in the relevant Skill plus half the matching Stat Bonus (a stat's value minus 10), and meet or beat a difficulty from 1 (Very Easy) to 19 (Nearly Impossible). Attacks instead roll d20 plus a weapon's hit bonus against the target's Evasion. Combat runs in rounds where each character spends three Action Points per turn, with an attack costing two and a natural 20 adding bonus damage. The GM awards Narrative Momentum for inventive roleplay, which players spend together with Action Points on Cinematic Actions — freeform stunts resolved at the GM's discretion. |
| Dice | d4–d12 dice pool | d4–d20 |
| Complexity | Medium | High |
| Accessibility | Low | Very High |
| Runnability | Medium | High |
| License | Cortex Creator License | CC BY 4.0 |
| Cost | $$ | Free |
| Publisher | Dire Wolf Digital | Blaze Reason |
| Year | 2020 | 2022 |
| Best For | GMs who want to build a custom system from modular parts — homebrew designers, genre-mixers, and groups tired of forcing their stories into a pre-built framework. | Groups who want maximal character customization in a free, setting-agnostic system — players who enjoy assembling a bespoke concept from a huge option pool and a GM willing to supply the world the rules deliberately leave blank. |
| Highlights | Highly modular — 18+ mods for core rules alone, clear writing with worked examples, Plot Point economy creates dynamic give-and-take, powered well-known licensed games (Marvel Heroic, Firefly, Leverage) | Characters are assembled from ten Archetypes, more than 210 Sub-Archetypes, over a thousand Abilities, plus Paths, Talents, and Traits, giving a single concept many independent axes of mechanical customization. Abilities draw on a Willpower pool, and spending extra Willpower upcasts them on the fly — scaling effects like damage, area, targets, or duration up to a per-tier limit — so one ability flexes to the moment instead of being a fixed effect. Every feature carries a complexity rating from 1 to 4, and Beginner Traits, a Cinematic Rules mode, and thirteen alternative-rule modules let a group run the same engine as a rules-light game or a dense tactical one. |
| Considerations | Not playable out of the box — requires significant GM assembly, steep learning curve to understand which mods fit your game, restricted third-party publishing ecosystem | Character creation draws from over a thousand abilities plus hundreds of talents and traits, so building a character means selecting from a very large catalogue rather than a curated short list. The system is setting-agnostic and ships with no default world, so a group must supply or adapt a setting before the customization options mean anything in play. Skill checks and attacks resolve on separate scales — d10 plus half a Stat Bonus for skills, d20 plus full bonuses against Evasion for attacks — so the two halves of the system use different math players must keep straight. |