Every generation annoys the previous with its louder, faster, more aggressive music.

For the last several years, I've been disappointed in the next generation's music, but because it's boring.

I mean, we had punk and metal and industrial - we didn't necessarily start them, but we sure embraced 'em.

New music has been lame for quite a while. It was placid and didn't go anywhere. It was whiny. I was sad that we had reached some sort of musical pinnacle, and seemed to be coming down the other side.

Then came dubstep. And the cycle continues.

AKA "The Streetbeater." From the Jazz At The Santa Monica Civic '72:

I tend to be a fan of game systems that are simple and elegant rather than crunchy, yet whenever I start hacking a system, I have a habit making things overly complex. With that in mind, I'm considering getting away from some of the more fiddly bits I'd planned on using in adapting Space: 1889 to Cortex Plus.

I had intended on having career templates providing benefits in addition to their normal abilities. That is, if a PC meets the requirements of a template, they would get some concrete game-world resource (let's say the Aristocrat template requires simply that you have a Gentleman or Lady role of d12, and gives you a manservant or maid, respectively), or ways to alter the rules (the Mercantile template might require a Gentleman or Lady rating of d8 or lower, Merchant of d8 or higher; expertise in Eloquence at d6 or better and Bargaining d10 or better, but allows your starting fortune to be based on your ability as a Cunning Merchant rather than a Resolute Gentleman).

Also, I was a kinda hip to having a bit of a "mini-game" to handle inventions and scientific advancement, as it is in the original Space: 1889 - it helped the process feel more significant. I still would like to do this, but what I've come up with has been a fairly kludgey and inelegant so far.

I'm still not ruling out either the career templates or R&D mini-game as they both seem to have potential for fun, but I've got a couple of notions that would simplify things quite a bit for both. I'll likely revisit them later, but here's a speed-rap version of character creation:

Manner
Propriety - how things are done - is quite important in society, so the manner in which you do things is the first set of ratings. Using this rating can get a bit mushy since its not what the character is doing but how they are doing it to determine what die gets rolled, and a player might persuade the GM to allow a less intuitive (and probably more beneficial) manner to be used.

The original set of manners I had in mind were Aggressive, Cunning, Graceful and Resolute (distributing a d4, d6, d8, and d10 among them). However, in going over the Fate Accelerated Edition, I'm considering broadening the manners to reflect something similar to FAE's approaches: Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick, and Sneaky. Heck, I might snag them outright (probably renaming a couple along the way). Taking that route, I'd have players distribute 1d4, 2d6, 2d8 and 1d10 among them.

Role
More than simply telling what you can do, your roles determine your place in society. The six roles are based on the sorts of folks found in Victorian adventure fiction: Criminal, Soldier, Scientist, Merchant, Explorer, and finally Lady or Gentleman (not both). When you try to do something that someone in that part of society should be good at, roll its related die rating - a scientist is good at research and knowing technical information, a Merchant is good at hands-on business dealings and crafting things, Explorers know languages and operate vehicles, et cetera.

The standard dice distribution should probably be one of each die from d4 to d12, plus one extra d6.

Expertise
This part ends up being quite a bit like skills in most RPGs, and I had planned a reasonably definitive expertise list that players could distribute some dice (maybe one of each, d4 to d12) among, but with a more granular set of manners, I'm not sure that's a good idea. So Tinkering or Social Graces or Shiphandling or Fisticuffs or Calculation Engine Operation or whatever it is that you have particular expertise in would go here.

Distinction
Distinctions here are pretty much as you'd find in Smallville: they are unrated, and depending on whether the player thinks a distinction should be helpful or detrimental to a situation an extra d8 or d4 may be rolled. A few distinctions that might be appropriate for this setting are veteran of desert wars, power hungry, rakish, focused researcher or sense of duty. Each PC should probably have about three distinctions.

Plot Points might be exchanged when distinctions come into play.

Asset
This is the stuff you have that may help you out. It may be something concrete such as wealth, a valet, a workshop, or vast personal library, but it might be more abstract like authority derived from an office, a clever plan, or religious faith.

The way I'm pondering using assets is derived almost entirely from Danger Patrol. Each asset will have a rank that indicates how many times it may be invoked before it must be refreshed, and the first asset used in a roll adds a die (probably d12), with each additional asset contributing another die at one step lower than the previous.
An asset may be used narratively without getting the die bonus and checking off a use of it - I may describe using my father's sword wrench spanner in a die-rolling situation without adding an extra die or checking off a use of it.

Trait overlap
I'm leaving the delineations of what an expertise, distinction or asset might be a bit nebulous, as they have more to do with how they work mechanically as it relates to what the player and GM's intentions are for the trait than a set of absolutes. If your authority is because of your understanding of what motivates people along with your confident bearing, it is likely an expertise; if it is derived from your office, it is probably an asset. Mechanically, if it's an expertise, you can pretty much count on rolling its die whenever it might be relevant; as an asset it might be used with less frequency, but great potency when it is relevant: Knowing how to handle a crowd is generally useful, whereas having a uniform and rank people respond to can be initially potent, but diminishes when used during the same situation. Having a powerful bearing could be a distinction if you want the character's natural authority to occasionally be inconvenient, perhaps by attracting unwanted followers or some such thing.

Simplification
Okay, all that being taken care of allows for the simplification of inventions and the career associated benefits. So instead of having to build your character to fit a master criminal template in order to get a henchman and a multiplier to your starting fortune, just take the henchman and wealth as assets. An inventor could have an expertise in Inventing; royalty payments and improved aether sail could be assets; your renown as an inventor might be an asset or distinction.

There's still some appeal to earning the benefits by fitting a template but I can get over that, but I do still like the R&D mini-games.

This is from The Geeks' album Every Time We Fall.

The invention system for this setting should be something pretty cool, since it really is what sets it apart from the real world, as well as other games. That being said, this is pretty disjointed right now, and I plan on revisiting the topic as things occur to me or are suggested. If you've got an idea, let me know - I want this to shine.

My initial idea to emulate the Space: 1889 invention process pretty closely in Cortex Plus is slowly and happily giving way to something that may end up being (hopefully) a bit more elegant and, well, Cortex Plus-like.

The method that I'd planned on importing almost whole-cloth from Space: 1889 would've gone something like this:

• You start with a number of research point based on your ratings as a Resolute Scientist.
• Each of those points may be spent on experimenting in a particular field of knowledge, modeled by a Cunning Scientist roll (including any relevant expertise, keeping the two highest as usual for C+). The result of that roll is added to that Field rating.
• Each potential invention has an understanding threshold (or something), and probably a couple of related Fields. The total of all related fields must be at least equal to the understanding threshold, and you must have some non-zero rating in each field before a prototype may be made.
• Making a prototype will probably involve some sort of Cunning Merchant roll, as Merchant is the role generally associated with crafting. Also, the components should be paid for. This roll will be compared to a difficulty number, and if the roll succeeds, the device has a reliability rating equal to the difference between the roll and the difficulty number. That reliability number would represent the power and stability of the device.
• Further research may be made to improve the device.

I wasn't terribly happy about some of that.

First, what if the player's character concept is to be an inventor of some renown, and the rolls are just plain lousy during the research period before the game begins? That's solvable through the setting's narrative: Perhaps the character now becomes obsessed with creating the first functioning foistboinder, rather than having already done so. That's the easiest way to handle it, and is a great hook for drawing the inventor into action.

What about running out of money (or other resources - rare elements or something) during the prototype phase? Borrowing (with interest) from investors (maybe the other PCs could become benefactors) is one possibility (and larger amounts might come with more strings attached, and would always come from folks who you would never say anything bad about. If you know what's good for you.), as is going out and looking for the rare elements yourself.

What if you run out of research points just before you know you would have made that tremendous breakthrough? Maybe your dedication and focus is so great that other areas begin to suffer - some exchange of dice levels in Roles, Manners, and Expertise for research points, perhaps: you've spent so much time in the lab, ignoring social functions, that your Gentleman die shrinks; some chemical you've been exposed to has made you a bit shaky and makes you less Graceful. Maybe something more specific (and colorful) - not having the appropriate safety precautions and going forward with the experiments anyway might make scientific progress but reduce your number of limbs or senses. This could get dangerously close to flaw balancing or some kind of Character Build Point thing, which I'm not terribly a fan of - I'd like something cleaner, more directly cause-and-effect, and with narrative hooks.

As for the process and game mechanics of invention...

Heck, this is Cortex Plus. Get rid of all those static ratings for the inventions and replace them with a GM's opposed die roll.

The effect die of the last research roll could be new device's reliability rating, but that removes the discrete crafting step as well as the need for decent Merchant and Inventing expertise rating. Further attempts may be made to refine and improve the device, but that's your first prototype's reliability.
The understanding threshold could be dynamic as well. The GM would a roll pool of dice to represent the research's obscurity and experiment's complexity, the power of the intended device, and maybe even its marketability. I'm not sure what categories should come into play int he form of dice, but starting with 2d6 is probably a good idea. My problem with this is that it doesn't necessarily lend itself to building a pool of knowledge with extended research; one way around that is to require a number of successful rolls (with bonus successes for succeeding by 5 or more).

For something emulating historical technology: d6 for something available from the current game year until the end of the Victorian era, d8 for something from Edwardian times, or d10 for technology from the Great War, and d12 for WWII and beyond. I may want to step up those dice a bit to prevent too much of the real world from interfering.

Any of the ivnentor's dice that rolls a 1 could create a snag - increasing the task's difficulty because you got bad information, having a lab accident, or getting side effects or unintended behaviors from the device.