Fandom Now Owns a Tabletop RPG System

Fandom, the wiki hosting service with several pop culture/gaming news sites under its umbrella, has purchased the Cortex RPG System. The RPG system was created by Jamie Chambers and originally released back in 2005 for use in the Serenity Roleplaying Game, set in the world of Joss Whedon's Firefly TV series. Since then, Cortex has been used as the system for RPGs based on Leverage, Smallville, Firefly, and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. The system was most recently updated in 2017, when Cam Banks launched a Kickstarter for a re-designed version of the system under license from Margaret Weis Productions, which originally owned the RPG system. Cortex is meant to be a modular toolkit of sorts that can be adapted for multiple genres, which is why it was used to make RPGs based on multiple TV shows and movies.

So - why is this a big deal for tabletop gamers? Well, Fandom is also the owner of D&D Beyond, a popular web-based service made for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition. D&D Beyond gives players and DMs tons of tools to create their own characters and efficiently run D&D games for subscribers. D&D Beyond is a fantastic way to manage characters, keep track of HP, conditions, and spell slots, and quickly look up monster stats. Fandom has announced that it plans to create a platform similar to D&D Beyond for Cortex Prime, built from the ground up to result in a more cohesive experience. Basically, Fandom plans to create a digital platform for Cortex that should make it a lot easier to understand and could result in a much lower barrier to entry than other RPG systems.

Fandom will complete fulfillment of the Cortex Prime Kickstarter, and will also publish books for the RPG system. Additionally, Fandom also plans to produce licensed games using the Cortex Prime system, although no specific details were announced. You can read the full announcement here.