The future looks better for Cortex, the Fandom Tabletop owned RPG-system that powers The Dragon Prince: Tales of Xadia game, which was released today, Masters of the Universe and perhaps others.
The “perhaps” is more likely now, as Fandom has released a new Cortex Prime Non-Commercial License.
The first version did not go down well in the community. RPG creators worried that Fandom was aggressively moving to claim ownership of ideas. At the same time, it would be almost impossible to distribute Cortex powered games since third-party sites were not allowed, and the Cortex Creator Studio had not yet been released.
License v2 allows not only third-party platforms like Itch and Patreon, it even allows for tips and Name Your Own Price tags, despite it being non-commercial. The text clarifies what’s protected, what’s usable and what’s not.
The new license comes just as Tales of Xadia ships its digital edition, becoming the first licensed Cortex game in eight years. It’s also the first Cortex Prime game, the latest edition of the rules.
In a combi-update on Kickstarter, Fandom’s Mellie Doucette said;
Late last year we launched (a little too quickly) the first version of our license. I’m not too full of myself to admit that I got too excited, and didn’t do all my due diligence, which lead to something that wasn’t the best license we could have had, nor was it the license that did exactly what we wanted (or needed) it to do. Our community here, as well as our wider community across socials and on Discord, gave us very clear feedback of where we had missed the mark, and gave us the opportunity to head back, put our noggins together and figure out where our wires got crossed.
Since the beginning of December 2021 I have been going back-and-forth and forth-and-back with our legal team here at Fandom (who have been incredibly gracious with their time and expertise) to turn my demands of them as a Community Manager, and Cam’s vision of what the Cortex creator space should be, into license-legalese gold. It’s been a process, but after a lot of that time, and an extra big lift from my wonderful team of moderators who tore each pass to absolute shreds and sent me back to the drawing board again and again, we have our second version!
Quick Links
- Cortex Prime Non-Commercial License.
- The Dragon Prince RPG: Tales of Xadia.
Is that the end of the story? Community contributions can be found in the comment section at the end of the page.
