I m a vet SR rpg player but never knew this existed. Anyone knows it? Is it good?

I found the pictures awesome!

I'm surprised you never heard of it.

It was heavily pushed by FASA to the CCG crowd, and I'm sure there was sufficient crossover into the RPG scene for it to have been mentioned. It got a fair review and coverage in InQuest magazine. It had promo cards etc. I think there was only 1 print run with no expansions.

The artwork was as good as you'd expect, and a lot darker than the Equivalent Netrunner game re: Cyberpunk.

As for mechanics, as I recall there was very little to warrant a 2nd look and deck building was reduced to buying booster packs.

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 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?

Thanks in advance. As you see Im 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   )

Quote from: silva;453698Ok, 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 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?

Thanks in advance. As you see Im 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   )

Haven't played this one but very familar with CCGs

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.

Hope it helps.

Quote from: Lawbag;453092It was heavily pushed by FASA to the CCG crowd, and I'm sure there was sufficient crossover into the RPG scene for it to have been mentioned. It got a fair review and coverage in InQuest magazine. It had promo cards etc. I think there was only 1 print run with no expansions.

Just a quick note.  There was one expansion, I think it was called Underworld.  It sold quite well at the shop I work at and we were suprised when the game was canned as from all indicators it was selling pretty well overall for a CCG in many places.

Lots of promo cards.  One was even put in an issue of Shadis magazine and then it wasn't even shrinkwrapped so several copies arrived without it.

Thanks for the help people. And thanks Jibba for answering all my points. Its all clearer to me now.

Quoteiv) 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.

This point is my main concern. 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 objectives, 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 ).

Quote from: silva;453949This point is my main concern. 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 objectives, 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.

You are right this is down to the game and so you just have to suck it and see. I don't excpet it woudl be very hard and 750 cards in a game of the complexity of basic VTES (the WW vampire games that this sounds similarish to) should made you 4 or 5 average decks

QuoteFurther, 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 ).

This bit you don't need to worry about too much. Again depending on the game Rare cards will either be the very tough cards which will become obvious, or they will be cards in a certain card type that do somethign from another card type, or they will be complex cards with an exception based rule which will be explained on the card. Magic uses colour coding on symbols other games have no differentiation but again you don't need to worry about this as from what I can see of the cards here the game is focused on 'agents' that do 'things' on your behalf and so the issues you will get will be that some of those skills require pre-requiste abilities or stats you don't have and some 'things' will be very effective whilst others will be next to useless. Rarity is unlikely to come into it unless the game is very badly designed.

Thanks again, Jibba and people.

Another question, maybe only for the vet players, unfortunately..

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!

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.

Except when ruined by "Luck o' the Irish".

Whats the problem with Luck O' ? I have 3 of them in my build but didnt need to use it yet. We banned "False Mentor" though.

By the way, I found out the best way to build a infiltrator deck is relying on tricks like spells (invisibility, sleep, jynx) and matrix programs (steamroller, redirect dataline, crash, etc) in first place, and on skills in second. This is something I didnt noticed at first, and the source of my previous complaint about not managing to build a infiltrator deck at that time. My error was in trying to rely only on skills - which is a very risky thing to do, since there are a LOT of variable skill combinations on the challenges, and trying to guess out is hard.

Further, I found out how to slow the TROLL POWER of my brother´s build by combining some interesting cards:

- the contact "Humanis Policlub Ganger" that increases Troll deploying cost by 1 and makes it deploy turned;
- the objective "Humanis Policlub Rally" that decreases metahuman attack by 2 pts;
- the special "metahuman prejudice" that makes a deployed metahuman go back to the pile;
- the "Loki" ganger, that deals 3 pts of damage in trolls automatically.

this games rocks!   there is a growing number of people i have found on the web playing lately.  there is a thread just like this on rpgnet.net.  and check teh boardgame geek page for this game.

have you seen the .net expansions or Corp War list?  let me know and i can supply them if needed.  

There is a group of us making the .net expansions and Corp war into print and play cards.  

You can also play online on Lackey.

Welcome to the RPGsite, Farseer! Nice to see a fellow shadowrun ccg player around here.

Quotehave you seen the .net expansions or Corp War list? let me know and i can supply them if needed.

I dont know of these. I appreciate if you send me. Thanks.

By the way, I know the RPGnet topic. I created it. (my nick is vini_lessa over there )

RIsing up to say my group keeps having a blast and finding new ways to play this game. Right now, we found out the best way is for us to play 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 objectives and 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, what do you guys think? Do you play like this too ?