Shadowrun card game ? Options

[silva]

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.. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Kagetenshi]

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

[Blade]

And Saeder-Krupp could win.

[Mr. Mage]

Looks interesting. Where could I find this? And is it a Collectible game or does it have a preset list of cards with it?

[Hocus Pocus]

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.

[CanRay]

I kick myself for not picking this up at the GenCon I went to.

[MYST1C]

Looks interesting. Where could I find this? And is it a Collectible game or does it have a preset list of cards with it?

It was a collectible card game released in 1997 (late SR2 era) - Wikipedia entry.

[tete]

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".

[silva]

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 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) )

[Kagetenshi]

what kind of game mode is more fun? 1 x 1 or multiplplayer (3+) ?

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

[silva]

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..

i) poker chips are too big and hide the card so the best markers are dice. also a lot of effects in CCGs are "for x turns" (I think this is a design fault and effects should be permanent until dispelled or for this round only but I digress ...) and so dice are the best way to track in general.

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 here), 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.

[Kagetenshi]

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

[Critias]

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.

[silva]

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.

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?

[Kagetenshi]

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

[silva]

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.

[silva]

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!

[yesferatu]

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 Dante the Wage Mage was, "I'm not even supposed to be here today."

[silva]

hehe funny quote.

I never saw it for sale anywhere and it didn't get much of a player base.

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. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Bigity]

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 Dante the Wage Mage was, "I'm not even supposed to be here today."

That pic says street mage, which doesn't make much sense.

[Critias]

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. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[hermit]

The artwork is awesome. If I manage to get my scanner working again I'll totally scan in my cards.

[CanRay]

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. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

*Sigh* Pop culture references date badly. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

'Course, some are immortal: "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

[MYST1C]

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.

Somewhat like 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").

[CanRay]

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."