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Dumpshock Forums _ General Gaming _ Shadowrun card game ?
Posted by: silva Apr 21 2011, 10:07 PM
I m a vet SR rpg player but never knew this existed. Anyone knows it? Is it good?
I found the pictures awesome!
[img]http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/9629/54511754.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/2453/84045287.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/1162/34642683.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/8887/85272561.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img852.imageshack.us/img852/183/91540722.jpg[/img]
[img]http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4087/5166878152_10171f64c0.jpg[/img]
[img]http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1217/5166277849_4b75138def.jpg[/img]
[img]http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4125/5166277233_ccda89b65b.jpg[/img]
EDIT: strange... the pics dont show to me.. 
Posted by: Kagetenshi Apr 22 2011, 12:33 AM
Yeah, that would be because the board is configured to not support posting pictures.
I'm a fan; it's not the most fantastic of games, perhaps most notably because it's obvious that they had a bunch of plans that never got realized (cards that have special effects for cards of some type when there are very few released cards of that type, say), and it really demands more than two players IMO, but it's a good time.
Oh, but the rulebook was definitely written by the people that gave us the RPG. I don't mean that in a good way, note.
~J
Posted by: Blade Apr 22 2011, 08:23 AM
And Saeder-Krupp could win.
Posted by: Mr. Mage Apr 22 2011, 05:29 PM
Looks interesting. Where could I find this? And is it a Collectible game or does it have a preset list of cards with it?
Posted by: Hocus Pocus Apr 23 2011, 01:31 AM
I bought a starter deck and 3 extra packs when this thing came out. Played a few games with my shadowrun buds but it never took with us. Now it just collects dust in a closet. Still some of the pics of the cards i have has some nice looking chicks. tinkerbell, media chick to name a couple.
Posted by: CanRay Apr 23 2011, 01:38 AM
I kick myself for not picking this up at the GenCon I went to.
Posted by: MYST1C Apr 23 2011, 10:45 AM
It was a collectible card game released in 1997 (late SR2 era) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun:_The_Trading_Card_Game.
Posted by: tete Apr 25 2011, 04:49 PM
It was pretty fun, mechanically similar to the old star trek card game. IIRC you and your opponents would lay down missions and hidden opposition cards then you would pick one of the missions (yours or an opponents) for your team to go on. Rinse wash repeat until someone had enough points to "win".
Posted by: silva Apr 26 2011, 01:21 AM
Ok, i just ordered from ebay a 750+ cards collection supposedly containing every Shadowrun CCG card in existence except the promos. Im reading the full rules for the game in this site here ( http://ccg-tcg.narod.ru/ShadowRun/rules/playinggame.htm ) but Im a total noob in CCGs and need some more help from you guys..
1) what kind of markers do you reccomend for tracking cumulative effects? (i was thinking about poker chips);
2) I didnt fully grasped the turn/unturn dinamics. In general, do you turn a card for using its powers, right? And this card cannot be used again untill you next turn? But if a Runner card is already on a Shadowrun, it can continue to go on even if its turned/used some power?
3) what kind of game mode is more fun? 1 x 1 or multiplplayer (3+) ? And what the game duration in general for each ?
4) what tips would you give to a group that dont want to play the game in the "collectible mode" ? I mean, my group would share the 750+ cards I bought from ebay. Whats the best way to play in this mode? Simply distributing randomicaly the cards around untill everyone have 60 cards in hand? Pre-building balanced decks and distributing it randomically to the players? Letting everybody pick his own deck from the pool ? Some other method?
I appreciate the help. As you see Ime really green. Never played Magic or anything like that. (to be frank, I always considered it a children´s game ultill meeting the SHadowrun CCG last week 
)
Posted by: Kagetenshi Apr 26 2011, 03:38 AM
Multiplayer. 1 x 1 is, IMO, an incomplete experience due to effects like alway being in direct opposition to one player and only having one player placing challenges on objectives against you.
~J
Posted by: silva Apr 27 2011, 12:14 PM
Thanks Kage. I suspected this.
The colleague JibbaJibba from TheRpgsite forums gently replied to my questions. I will transcribe it here, since it may be usefull for other shadowrunccg noobs like me..
ii) The 'tapping' mechanic which was patented by Wizards for Magic and so is called turn /unturn flip/unflip etc in other CCG, is just a way to show that somethign has done its thing this round. Generally stuff can act once (one attack, one spell, one chance to pick the magic lock) each round and the tapping effect is just a convenient way to show that. The specific CCG will have its own rules in this area and no doubt ways to 'unturn' a card so you can use its power more than once in a round.
iii) duel (1v1 ) or multiplayer depends on the game and the group. So Magic is probably best in duel mode (the multiplayer variants are largely tacked on as an afterthought) whereas VTES (the WW vampire game) is built for multiplayer and the mechanics don't cope well in duel mode. From reading these cards the mechanics here seem to indicate a multiplayer game is the default mode.
In addtion duel games are by their nature more competative and tend to be faster whereas multiplayer games tend to be more social and relaxed. (compare playing chess against your mate to playing poker with your mates). A magic games 1v1 takes about 15 minutes. A typical Multiplayer game, and this looks pretty typical, will run from 1 - 2 hours with 4 or 5 players (obviously the first few games are slower as you get used to the rules)
iv) Deck building again depends on the game. Some games are pretty relaxed and just spliting a bunch of cards into even piles kind of works, other games (and Magic is in this category) have critical deck building strategies and you need cards in play to play other cards and so just splitting cards randomly is not going to work. From Lawbag's comments this game looks like it's more in the first category. In either case I recommend building balanced decks the first few times then letting players draft out of the pool if you keep playing it long enough and you find it fun.
A lot of CCGs suffer from poor playtesting and a particular strategy, play style or even a card can totally dominate so keep mixing stuff up and if a particular card dominates then pull it to level the game a bit.
Based on this, my new question is..
In the case of the shadowrun ccg, there are a lot of cards that depends on other cards for working, so splitting cards randomnly will result in disfunctional decks (like the Magic game you mentioned above). So strategical deck building is mandatory for this game. And now comes the problem: HOW to build a deck strategically? I dont know. And I think you wont too, as you dont know the specifics of the shadowrun ccg.
The little Ive read about its rules and seen through its cards (with the help of this little program over http://www.wolflair.com/index.php?context=card_vault), I see there exists a strategical layer concerning the way you defeat challenges: sleazing them or brute forcing them. So this would be a choice (I pick obj., runners and gear focused on skills and sleazing/infiltrating abilities, or I pick obj, runners and gear focused in violance/combat ? Or a mix of both? ), but what else? Where do I go from here? I dont know.
Further, I see there is a distinction based on card availability (common, uncommon and rare), but I dont know if this info comes in the card. This could be a way for "balancing out" decks (1 deck = 30 common, 15 uncommon, 5 rares, for eg), but if dont comes in the card, how am I supposed to know? (the little program cited above do gives this info, but it would be a lot of work checking it for every card ).
I appreciate any help.
Posted by: Kagetenshi Apr 27 2011, 02:21 PM
So despite being the owner of multiple display boxes of decks and booster packs, the majority of games I've played thus far have been sealed-deck format—I can't offer substantial, detailed, or insightful advice on deck-building "in the large".
That said, one decision springs to mind: Riggers+Drones, Deckers+Programs, Mages+Spells/Spirits (IIRC the requirements are actually slightly different, but there's a lot of overlap). In general, you're probably going to want to pick one or zero of these. You might be able to get away with two, and in many cases you can include a Rigger/Decker/Mage in a deck that lacks, respectively, Drones/Programs/(Spells/Spirits), but considering how many challenges you need in a deck you can't afford to have too many categories of stuff that requires you to have other stuff in play.
~J
Posted by: Critias Apr 27 2011, 08:22 PM
I recently got a couple starter decks and a half dozen booster packs from a buddy, and plan on toting them to Gencon with me just to see if anyone wants to sit down and try it out. In the meantime, I'm just digging flipping from card to card and enjoying the artwork and overall feel of the things.
Posted by: silva May 1 2011, 01:11 AM
Yea, I noticed this. Different types of runners demand different types of gear. It seems an important consideration to take.
On another note, the high randomization factor of various cards bother me a bit. There are a LOT of cards that require you to roll some number on a d6 to use. I dont think I like this idea in a card game. Since I already paid the card deploying-cost in nuyens, I dont want to risk wasting the card on a poor die roll.
Do you guys know if there are any optional or house rules concerning this? I was thinking in minimizing the faillure chance by reducing all success to a miss only on a result of 1 on a d6 roll.
Any ideas?
Posted by: Kagetenshi May 1 2011, 04:40 PM
It's a bit of a lowball, on account of removing risk, but you could eliminate the test and adjust the price proportionately. So if you have a card that cost 4¥ to play and had a 1/3 chance of success, the card now costs 12¥ to play and automatically succeeds.
For your proposed change, you'd want the new deploy cost to be 4¥*((5/6)/(1/3))=10¥.
~J
Posted by: silva May 7 2011, 03:55 AM
Great idea there, Kage. The only think I would change is, for simplicity sake, state that for each 2¥ spent the target number is modified by 1.
So, if a card says I must roll 4-6 for succeeding in it, I could..
spend 2¥ for succeeding on a 3-6 roll,
spend 4¥ for succeeding on a 2-6 roll,
spend 6¥ for automatically succeed in it.
These values could adjusted of course (maybe 2¥ is too cheap for incresing/decreasing the target number), and the option to automatically succeed maybe shouldnt exist (you always fail if you roll 1). I think these things can be more evident only through play.
On another note, I noticed general trends for certain types of runners:
First of all, runners who dont need aditional cards for working (like gear, cyber, etc) are more expensive. This is the case with the more combative ones, like samurai and mercenary. That said..
deckers are very strong for recon, but very weak for everything else;
mages are fragile but versatile in its capabilities, and tend to be offense oriented;
shamans are fragile but supportive in its capabilites, and tend to be defense oriented;
riggers tend to be the most versatile runners, helping with offense, defense, mobility, recon, etc;
street samurai are the best damage makers, but are the most expensive runners;
mercenaries are the mid-tier damage makers, and tend to trade combat power for skills variety;
gangers are the low-tier damage dealers, and are the most cheap.
Or so are my impressions.
Posted by: silva May 16 2011, 12:35 PM
Ok, after 2 plays (the first a one-on-one, and the second a 3-player game) Im having the impression the game favors brute force runners a bit too much. Initially I felt there would be more "openess" in deck builds but now I think the "brute force" builds (lots of warrior runners, specially TROLLS) are almost mandatory for a competitive deck (I tried buiding an all sleazer/infiltration deck, but failed miserably).
Is this an early (and hopefully wrong) impression on my part? Or does it have some truth in it? If so, what would you guys reccomend as house-rules to avoid the TROLLS dominating every other build ?
Thanks!
Posted by: yesferatu May 23 2011, 05:33 PM
I really liked it when i saw it like 10 years ago.
I never saw it for sale anywhere and it didn't get much of a player base.
It's possible I just thought it was cool because the flavor text for http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/5166876552_dbda24471c.jpg was, "I'm not even supposed to be here today."
Posted by: silva May 25 2011, 11:40 AM
hehe funny quote.
Ebay has lots of stuff for it, from starter/booster decks, to collection packs with hundreds of cards, to rare cards sold individually. And it is bidded for/sold regularly. Its a nice place to start looking.
Posted by: Bigity May 25 2011, 01:41 PM
I never saw it for sale anywhere and it didn't get much of a player base.
It's possible I just thought it was cool because the flavor text for http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/5166876552_dbda24471c.jpg was, "I'm not even supposed to be here today."
That pic says street mage, which doesn't make much sense.
Posted by: Critias May 25 2011, 05:23 PM
Clerks was big at the time and they wanted to give it a little nod. It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to be funny.
Posted by: hermit May 25 2011, 05:27 PM
The artwork is awesome. If I manage to get my scanner working again I'll totally scan in my cards.
Posted by: CanRay May 25 2011, 06:34 PM
*Sigh* Pop culture references date badly.
'Course, some are immortal: "What we have here is a failure to communicate."
Posted by: MYST1C May 29 2011, 07:52 AM
I never saw it for sale anywhere and it didn't get much of a player base.
Somewhat like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netrunner, the Cyberpunk 2020-TCG produced by Wizards of the Coast in 1996 - shelved after just one expansion because WotC realized they had created in-house competition for Magic: The Gathering after Netrunner got rave reviews (InQuest mag called the mechanics "better than M:TG").
Posted by: CanRay May 29 2011, 03:43 PM
Ah yes, the "Fox TV Syndrome".
"We can't have that show on, it's getting good ratings and reviews! Both the critics *AND* the fans like it? Has to be cancelled! After all, we can put a Reality TV Show in it's spot."
Posted by: silva Jun 4 2011, 12:07 AM
Updating to say we had our fourth game last weekend, and I won by using a infiltrating deck full of runners weak in combat but good in passing by unnoticed (spells like invisibility and Sleep, chipjacks with skillsofts, and special abilities). My brother played a full-brute force deck composed only of trolls mercenaries and samurai, with assault cannons and heavy armor, and we thought he was the favorite before the game started, but when he saw it, my team of sleek infiltrators was dominating the board.
We played 4 hours straight and didnt want to stop.
This game is awesome.
Posted by: Sesix Jun 6 2011, 12:32 AM
I miss this game. It was great for what it was. I use to be a dick I would run this mission "Awakened something" I can't remember, but its special was when ever an awakened obstacle was revealed the mission ended. So, I use to load it with corpse lights, then breeze through it with my own team hehe.
I wish someone would buy the rights and bring it back to life.. I miss it, along with the old MechWarrior TCG.
Posted by: silva Jun 15 2011, 06:40 AM
Ive created some cards, inspired by the cancelled expansion that was in line ("Corp Wars", I think) for the game.
What do you guys think? Are they balanced?
http://tinypic.com/r/opp8wl/7
http://tinypic.com/r/nsvw1/7
Obs¹: I took the liberty to use a name from the "Shadowrun Duels" toy-series for the Covert Ops one.
Obs²: and she has a poor man´s recon - you have to pay 2Y for it. I think this is a better thing to do, since putting a normal recon (eg: for free) would deprotagonize the deckers.
Posted by: Link Jun 15 2011, 10:07 AM
Your cards look good though I'm out of touch with the game so can't speak to their balance. I recall the coolest cards had some SR flavoured quote which may help jazz up your custom work.
[Still have my box of cards in good nick btw.]
Posted by: silva Jul 31 2011, 01:32 AM
Bump
After many plays, my group feels the game has some rough edges that could benefit of house rules, and I would like to know if you guys agree. The mains issues we found are..
1. Interception rule. It makes sense from a 2-players standpoint, but doesnt make sense at all in a 3-4 players game, because if one player realizes a interception on another, the 3rd or 4th player will simply go and get the objective unstopped.
My group is considering eliminate this rule outside of 2-player games, and ruling that in this case, its only possible to go for the objective if it have at least a challenge on it. So, any objectives with no challenges cant be targetted for runs.
2. rep points of certain objectives. We feel the rep points are really unbalanced in relation to the difficult some objectives present. Eg: 35 pts for Fort Knocks (0/+2 for personal challenges) doesnt make sense for us. It doesnt impose a so hard modifier on the challenges, and should reward around 25-30 pts only. This is valid for a lot of other objectives. We think that to fix itm we should re-write the rep pts all over the board.
3. the upkeep on some prime runners seem badly balanced too. Eg: Ghost Who Walks costing 8 plus 2 upkeep makes it one of the worst cards in the game. I think all primes upkeep should be reduced to only 1, except for Lord Torgo, whose stats and abilities are really powerful and justify the hi upkeep.
4. the dice rolling probabilities on some cards seem too low, making these cards not worthy in any situation. Eg: the Brain and the Auto-Doc drones are really expensive and need combinations to work (mainly in the case of the Brain, that needs skillsofts) - it doesnt make sense for the player to roll dice at every time they are used with a probability of 50% (or it would be 66% ?) for them to get trashed.
What you guys think about this?
Thank you.
Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 31 2011, 09:20 AM
My group is considering eliminate this rule outside of 2-player games, and ruling that in this case, its only possible to go for the objective if it have at least a challenge on it. So, any objectives with no challenges cant be targetted for runs.
Then no one plays any challenges on any objectives, preventing the opposition from even trying. You can't even effectively rule that people must load up challenges if they can, since thy aren't guaranteed to have one at any given time and their hands are hidden.
I'd have to look at everything again, but due to the constrained range of rep values this doesn't necessarily seem unbalancing—the objective is made available for all players to aim for.
I'd have to review the cards to comment on the other two proposals.
~J
"Pay X nuyen, kill X elves."
Posted by: silva Aug 5 2011, 03:43 AM
Unless you rule that the players cannot discard challenges from their hands except when there is no more challenge slots to deploy on objectives. ( this forces the players to deploy their challenges, or get theirs hands unplayable/full of challenges only).
But after all this time, just now I realizes I can be playing the game wrongly. Please Kage, say whats the correct way to play..
1) all players play each turn, sucessively, phase after phase ? (Eg: Turn1: all players play credstick phase, then all players play refresh phase, etc)
or
2) each turn only 1 player plays, one at a time ? (eg: Turn 1: player 1 alone plays credstick phase, players 1 alone plays refresh phase, etc)
(Ive been playing option 1) all this time, and I think it can be wrong )
Posted by: Kagetenshi Aug 5 2011, 01:57 PM
It also removes the ability for players to discard challenges that aren't appropriate for the current set of objectives unless they fill them up first. I'm not sure I see a good way to resolve this dilemma.
1) all players play each turn, sucessively, phase after phase ? (Eg: Turn1: all players play credstick phase, then all players play refresh phase, etc)
or
2) each turn only 1 player plays, one at a time ? (eg: Turn 1: player 1 alone plays credstick phase, players 1 alone plays refresh phase, etc)
(Ive been playing option 1) all this time, and I think it can be wrong )
I'll have to dig up a rulebook to be sure, but I'm pretty sure it's option 2.
~J
Posted by: silva Aug 6 2011, 02:57 PM
Ive just re-read my rulebook and, wihle it doesnt says it explicitly, it says at various points things like "that player´s turn", which means its really option 2 (and Ive been playing it wrong all this time xD ).
And Kage, whats your opinion on the Rapier bikes ? (trash to go directly on a run or vice-versa). This ability is really good (allowing you to send runners after some challenges are already defeated, or allowing you to retreat from runs), but the fact that it must be discarded once used makes it a hard choice for me. (if we could at least make a test for it not being discarded - maybe adding piloting to increasing success chance - I could see the point, but right now I cant).
Posted by: Kagetenshi Aug 7 2011, 07:43 PM
I wouldn't use that as its primary ability, but for 2¥ to get (A1) and that option I don't think it's awful. Whether I'd get around to putting it into a deck if I was working from a wide selection of cards, I'm not sure.
~J
Posted by: silva Aug 27 2011, 03:25 PM
How do you guys play/used to play the game? I mean, do you pre-build decks and distribute for the player in the beginning of the game, or each player have his own deck, etc?
My group found the best way is to pre-build various thematic decks, and each player picks one before play begins. Right now we have 7 decks, each build with 70 cards (but trimmed down to 60 by the player who picks it, beforeplay begins)..
1 pure combat-themed
1 pure sleazing-themed
1 combat-sleazing mix/themed
1 shaman-themed
1 rigger-themed
1 gangers-themed
1 lone star-themed
The decks are thematically build even to the challenges level, so for Eg: a Lone Star deck will be mostly composed of "K9 Units" and "Lone Star patrols", "Barney phyphes", etc. while a Rigger deck will have a lot of "Security Drones" and "Sentry guns" and vehicle challenges. But we dont put ALL challenges thematic, just most of it, otherwise it would get too static/predictable (so even a Rigger deck will have its parcel of Manticores and Gargoyles; besides it the player can customize whathe wants when trimming the deck down from 70 to 60 cards).
So, how do you guys play ?
Posted by: silva Sep 11 2011, 04:24 AM
Hey folks, another cards that Ive just made for the Corp War unofficial expansion..
http://i54.tinypic.com/2mpfmzm.jpg
http://i56.tinypic.com/k2fh2d.jpg
Notice that I took the liberty to change the text from the leaked expansion list a bit, for sake of simplicity. The original MP Laser involved tracking "ammo tokens", which I found too fiddly for my tastes and really not in spirit of the game. But thats a simple matter of changing the texts on the card. The really difficult part was adjusting the layout and finding a good picture (this one is from the back of New Seattle book for SR 3e).
My aim is to make at least 3 new cards of each category - runners, challenges, objectives, contacts, locations, specials - until next week. And then find copyhouse nearby and get everything nicely printed and ready to play.
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