Android: Netrunner
Monolithic megacorps and individualistic netrunners collide in a dystopian future. Set in the gritty, cyberpunk future of Android, Android: Netrunner is a two-player Living Card Game™ that rewards skill, strategy, and just the right amount of calculated risk.
In a world where corporations can scan the human mind and interface it directly with electronic data, more data moves every second than was ever processed in the first five-thousand years of written language. The network is omnipresent, the crux of modern human civilization, and while visionary corporations seek to secure their most valuable data on the network, the elite hackers known as netrunners seek to steal it.
This asymmetrical card game resurrects the mechanics of the original Netrunner, designed by Richard Garfield, and updates them to increase clarity and promote a more dynamic play environment.
The Android: Netrunner Core Set features 252 cards, including seven unique identity cards.
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Upon its initial release in 1996 by Wizards of the Coast, the gaming press lauded Netrunner as a brilliant, innovative, highly interactive, cerebral, and rewarding card game. Unfortunately, its only expansion took a full year to be released, by which time the game’s momentum had died out. Now, Fantasy Flight has brought it back from the dead, and it’s even better than it was before.
In “Android Netrunner”, players take on the goal of either a large, shadowy megacorporation from FFG’s cyberpunk “Android” universe, or a computer hacker trying to take them down. This is the first brilliant part of the game: the Corporation and the Runner are different decks, and they play completely differently past the most basic game structures — there’s only one card type that works the same for the Runner and Corporation. The Corporation is big and playing defense, installing agendas on remote servers and trying to advance them enough to complete them, and putting protective ICE around them to keep the Runner out. Most everything the Corporation plays is face-down until activated, making ability to bluff and provoke your opponent into traps very important. The Runner uses programs and hardware to hack into the Corporation’s servers (and not just ones where Agendas are installed — you can hack into the Corp’s hand, deck, or discard pile!), trying to break past the ICE and get access to the Agendas to steal them. Nothing they play is facedown, but they have more flexibility with their abilities and the initiative of choosing when to attack.
The game ends when someone scores 7 Agenda points, either by the corporation keeping them protected long enough to advance and score them, or the Runner successfully getting in to steal them. That’s right, the game is so asymmetrical, the Runner’s deck doesn’t even contain its own means to win the game. Playing the Corp requires ability to plan, and ability to bluff — once the Runner starts a run, you won’t be able to use anything in your hand, just things you have in play. You need to set traps for your opponent and keep them away from your valuable Agendas. The Runner needs to be able to read the Corp to avoid traps and ambushes, and properly manage risk and reward to get access to their Agendas without overextending yourself or taking too much damage.
The core gameplay is incredibly flexible and makes every decision meaningful — instead of having a bunch of defined phases wherein you draw cards, recover resources, play as many cards as you can afford, then attack, turns are made up of four “clicks”. Each click is used to draw a card, gain 1 credit from the bank, play a card, make a run, advance an Agenda, or activate one of your in-play cards that use up clicks (as well as a few other actions that are more specific, like getting rid of “tags” or using them to destroy the Runner’s resources.) The Corp’s first click for the turn is always used to draw a card, so they only get 3 clicks to spend, but other than that your turns are wide open. Card drawing is not the bottleneck it is in other games; players can draw 4 cards per turn if they want without using any dedicated draw cards. It’s an amazing, fluid system that manages to keep players feeling like they always have options, and keeps every credit and card valuable.
Android: Netrunner actually improves on the classic 1996 Netrunner in several notable areas, to boot. There are now factions for both Corp and Runner, and factions have different specialties and weaknesses to focus on, rather than every card being playable in every deck for the appropriate side. Corp factions are four different megacorporations the player can represent: Jinteki has the best ambushes and deals net damage to the Runner, Haas-Bioroid uses recursion and ICE that is staggeringly powerful but includes built-in ways to bypass it, NBN is unparalleled at tracing the Runner to “tag” them and use that information to screw with them by destroying resources/closing bank accounts/et cetera, and Weyland Consortium is big, ugly, has tons of money, and no sense of ethics whatsoever. Runner “factions” are more like philosophies: Shapers are in it to prove their skill and creativity, and have some of the best custom hardware and icebreakers; Criminals are in it to enrich themselves and get the most money and several tricks to gain easier access, and Anarchs just want to watch the world burn and focus on Viruses that weaken the Corp’s ability to fight back. Every faction has a character or corp card with a special ability and deckbuilding restrictions on it; in the core set, every deck must have a minimum of 45 cards and a maximum of 15 “dots” of out-of-faction cards; faction-aligned cards have one to five dots in the corner indicating how easy they are to splash into other decks. This gives players ability to customize, but still keeps them roughly sticking to their faction of choice.
The only problems with the game are very, very minor. There’s an ambiguity in the rulebook about if the Corp’s fixed card draw counts as an action or not (which is relevant a few times given that certain things can be used after actions but not before them), the special names given to the Runner’s hand and discard pile (“grip” and “heap”) are silly, and there’s one Corp card, Scorched Earth, that kind of forces Runners to always play as if their opponent had it in hand because it will kill them immediately if they leave themselves open. And… that’s pretty much it. Everything else about the game is pure genius from top to bottom and a shining example of everything a card game can and should be. Buy it. You won’t regret it.
Overview: Android: Netrunner is a Living Card Game for two players depicting a cyber-battle between a mega corporation and a shrewd hacker set in a dark future.
Gameplay: The corporation player wins by scoring seven points worth of “agenda” cards. He must use resources to “advance” them before the runner can steal them from him. The runner’s deck contains no agendas. He wins by stealing seven points worth of agenda cards directly from the “corp”. This can be achieved by making successful “runs” on the corp’s “servers”, including his draw deck, discard pile and even his hand. The corp also loses if they can no longer draw a card from their deck. The runner can lose if he is forced to discard more cards than he has in his hand.
To protect his agendas, the corp plays defensive cards, called “Ice”, face down in a line in front of his servers. These create obstacles which stop the runner or cause damage to his hand or cards in play when he encounters them. In turn, the runner can play “icebreakers” which allow him to spend “credits” to cancel the effects of the Ice. The corp can also play cards that can be advanced and appear to be agendas but are actually dangerous traps set to harm the runner.
Each player, on his turn, has a limited number of actions to take. They include drawing cards, playing cards, gaining credits, advancing cards (corp) and making runs (runner). The player is free to choose which ones he performs and in what order. What ensues is a race involving action and economy management that includes careful timing and bluffing.
Players can custom build their own decks, selecting cards that fit their preferred strategies. The game offers four different corporations and three runner factions each offering a unique play style. Factions can be combined, but is limited by an “influence” system. This assigns a cost to individual cards when used out of their primary faction and caps the amount that can be incorporated. The base game provides 252 cards to explore deck-building but new cards will be introduced gradually over the year through mini-expansions called “data packs”.
Pros:
- Every card has its own illustration depicting an element from the game’s cyberpunk setting.
- Replay value is incredibly high with all the customization offered by LCG format.
- Open but limited choices combined with the corp’s deceptive card placements create an anxious race between players.
- Gameplay is fast and two-game matches can be completed in 90 – 120 minutes.
Cons:
- The game utilizes cyberpunk jargon to name many game elements, building theme but confusing new players and raising the learning curve.
- While not as bad as a traditional trading card game, the monthly expansions can squeeze a game budget maybe too often.
Historical Figure/ Fictional Character I’d Most Like to Play Against: William Gibson
Android: Netrunner is a brilliant card game requiring critical timing and bluffing. It successfully achieves what its designer Richard Garfield intended it to be: “With Magic, often the cards played you. In Netrunner, I wanted a game where you played the cards.”
I’m not really into CCG or LCG. I don’t really like the idea of spending and spending and spending money to buy cards to be “better” player. But I do love everything that is somehow connected with cyberpunk theme. As there are very few board games (or RPG or even video games) set in cyberpunk-ish world, I decided to give Netrunner a try.
I don’t really care about card trading, deck buidling and playing tournaments. I am what you may call a “casual” card gamer. And I must say that Netrunner is perfect for me. It’s assymetrical so depending on which say you choose, you get totally different goals and mechanics. The core set includes 4 corp factions and 3 runners factions, which is enough to have at least a dozen of different gameplays. When you add the possibility of deckbuilding – changing cards, mixing factions – you get a game that has the highest repleyabillity I have ever seen in CCG or LCG. And it’s all there in the core set. If you want to continue your hobby and collect expansions – go ahead, but if you don’t feel like it – you can still enjoy game after game after game and never get bored.
What I really like about Netrunner is the way the game mechanics fit with all the “fluff”. It’s not like M:tG “OH BOY I CAST SUPER SPELL AND IT HAS THIS AWESOME EFFECT. IT DOESN’T REALLY MAKE SENSE BUT MAGIC DOESN’T HAVE TO MAKE SENSE”. In Netrunner, pretty much every card effect can be explained. When you do Stimhack you get hacking boost but – guess what? – steroids are bad for health and you get a brain damage after that. You want to weaken server’s firewall? You use a virus on a piece of ICE protecting it. The runner wasn’t careful enought and the corp traced him? Now he is tagged and can lose all of his precious resources (or can even get killed as corporation set fire to his apartment with Scorched Earth). To sum up – Netrunner designers did a great job putting fluff in nearly every game rule.
Last but not least – game looks simply beautiful. If you watch Blade Runner or Ghost in the Shell over and over again, or can’t stop playing Deus Ex or System Shock – you will love Netrunner’s art and design.
This is an excerpt from a preview I wrote about Netrunner earlier this year. It still sums up some of the finer points of the game.
For the full preview, go to: http://gameshop.com.au/blog/thegamesshopper/2012/06/14/the-return-of-netrunner/
“Netrunner was, is, and will be once more, a fantastic game. The ads all seem to focus on the fact that it is an ‘asymmetrical card game,’ meaning that each of the two players has a totally different set of cards and options, and this is definitely one of the key selling features of the game. One player takes on the role of a powerful multinational corporation,*bent on advancing its agendas and protecting its secrets. The other player is a lone hacker, a netrunner, one puny figure who stands in the shadow of legions.
Like my favourite war game, War of the Ring, this is a game where one side holds all the power. The corporation sets up the board, creating secretive data forts that can be used to advance their agendas. The runner can try to crack into these forts, but will be opposed by the corporation’s defences. The runner’s advantage is that they can dart and weave and strike at exposed areas in the corp’s network.
Not even the corp’s hand is safe, in fact. The runner can attack the corp’s hand (thematically referred to as the ‘HQ,’) their deck (R&D,) or their discard pile (Archives.) The corp, however, can lay traps in any of these targets to cripple, wound, or even kill the runner. Indeed, the life of a renegade hacker is perilously fragile.
The beauty of Netrunner, though, goes beyond the dynamic nature of an asymetrical game or the ingeniously employed theme (no wonder Android took it over – barely a change needs to be made.) Even when it was a true CCG, surrounded by peers that were largely dominated by deck building and tactical purchases, Netrunner has been a game of choices. Each player is given multiple options on their turn that are not exclusively tied to their cards, making a player’s skill more important than the hand they drew. Indeed, I’ve heard whispered rumours of netrunners so talented that they’ve won games without playing a single card.
Such fairy tales are, of course, best left at the Wyldside club if you want to survive in the harsh, oppressive reality of running.”
Disclaimer for title: I tend to hate card games. I have never played LCG, every CCG I’ve played bored me to tears, and deck builders just don’t do it for me.
I bought into this game partially because the theme interested me, but mainly it was the hype. I’ve been completely blown away thus far. The first game was rough, but after we finished both of us had an epiphany. The games became more fun and strategic afterwards. It has strategy, economy building, conflict, bluffing, and just a sprinkle of luck to top everything off. I’m so happy I bought into the hype and really hope my group doesn’t grow bored of it.
I neither love or hate this game and weather or not if I like it is still up in the air. It is a fairly easy game to learn, but at the same time a very easy game to become frustrated over. This game can be a night mare for the strategic players and impulse players all the same. About the only thing that this game really has going for it is its lack of continuity wish I believe it is one of its down falls as well. Tags have hardly any repercussion other than one card that can make you lose the game in one shot. Witch makes me wonder why this is not a more widely used card. That is just one example. As I said though the jury is still out on this one but it does not look good.