Fantasy Flight Games' Living Card Game Model

For many years, I was addicted to Magic: The Gathering. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'm no longer addicted, although I do occasionally through together a deck on Magic: The Gathering Online if I want to kill some time.

One of the frustrating things about Magic was that it's an incredible money sink. Roughly eight-hundred new cards are released every year. I'm not a collector, so I never tried to acquire a copy of every single card, but if I had, it would have been extremely expensive. No, I approached the game not as a collector, nor even as a gamer, but as a deck-builder. I enjoyed creating new and interesting decks. I liked tuning and tweaking decks until they were just right. The problem was that I would finish a deck and move right on to the next one. I wanted to build something else. The pleasure for me was more in the creation of decks, less in the playing of them.

I discovered, after ripping open far more booster packs than I'd care to admit, that there was a way to play the game designed specifically for people such as me. It's called drafting. Each player is given three booster packs of fifteen random cards each--eleven commons, three uncommons, and a rare card. Each player opens their first pack, selects one card from the pack, and passes the remaining fourteen cards to the player on his or her left. He or she then takes the fourteen cards passed from the player on his or her right, selects one of those cards to keep, and passes the remaining thirteen cards to the player on his or her left. This continues until the pack is depleted. Each player then opens his or her second pack and repeats the process, except everyone passes to the right. The third pack is passed to the left. Each player ends up with forty-five cards. Using those cards, plus any number of basic land card, each player creates a forty-card deck and plays each other.

This was an amazing revelation for me. I could go into a game store every week, build a new deck, and play it right then and there! Unfortunately, this really drained my wallet. I won't say how much money I've spent on Magic cards over the years, but it was a lot. Way too much.

So I gradually weaned myself from the game. I still find it enjoyable, but I cannot afford to keep it as a hobby. It is too expensive for me, both in time and money.

Most people will eventually fall away from collectible card games because of the expense. One of the major contributing factors to this expense is that collectible card games come in random booster packs. Consumers never know exactly which cards they will get. This makes certain cards--particularly the tournament-level rare cards--extremely difficult to acquire. Players who participate in Magic tournaments today could spend four- or five-hundred dollars or more to assemble their decks. One card that sees a great deal of use is called Jace, the Mind Sculptor. A single copy of this card retails for around one-hundred dollars, and most of the decks that use it will run the maximum of four copies in the deck. That's just for four cards of a (typically) sixty card tournament deck.

That's quite the money sink.

Fantasy Flight Games seems to have caught on to this dilemma. They currently have three games that follow the Living Card Game model. (Those games are: A Game of Thrones, Call of Cthulhu, and Warhammer: Invasion, based on George R. R. Martin's book series, H.P. Lovecraft's mythos, and Games Workshop's fantasy world, respectively. An LCG based on The Lord of the Rings is set to be released this year.) Instead of releasing randomized packs, new sets are released in their entirety. Every single card is bundled together in a single pack. No more hunting through booster boxes, hoping for the right cards. No more competing over rare cards. Every card, all in one purchase.

This may not be exciting for collectors, who love the thrill of the hunt. A Living Card Game is too easy for them. There is nothing to chase after. But for gamers and deck-builders, this is fantastic. Everyone has easy access to the same cards. How those cards are put together, then, as well as the skill in using those decks, will make the difference between victory and defeat. I have lost many a Magic game because my opponent had a deeper wallet. He could spend money to acquire the most powerful and ridiculous cards, while I struggled to put together something remotely competitive. This is not a problem with LCGs. Everyone is on an equal playing field.

I didn't like Mr. Martin's fantasy series, so A Game of Thrones is not for me. The Warhammer fantasy setting is not nearly as interesting to me as the Warhammer 40,000 science fiction setting, so I probably won't try Warhammer: Invasion. The Lord of the Rings game might be intriguing, but it's not out, yet. But Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos is very intriguing to me. Admittedly, most of the actual stories were pretty terrible. But the mythos behind them is fascinating, and I would love to explore that world further. Subsequently, I have purchased some Call of Cthulhu LCG products.

One thing I noticed was that the Call of Cthulhu Core Set, which is supposedly the jumping off point for beginning players, was not a good product for beginners. For one thing, although a maximum of three copies of a given card is allowed in a deck, only a single copy of each card is included. This means that the game designers were able to squeeze in many different cards, and therefore introduce new players to a wide variety of concepts.  This also means that players do not get a clear idea of how to build a good, streamlined deck.  Players must either assemble sub-par decks consisting entirely of singletons, or purchase three copies of the Core Set.  That's a high initial cost to get into the game.

The Core Set does provide a decent rule book to introduce players to the complex game.  It does a very good job of explaining all the basic mechanics of the game and how gameplay work.  It does not, however, do a very good job explaining tactics or deck-building. 

All told, I would say that this game is very difficult to get into unless you are already familiar with other collectible card games.  The Core Set provides cards, a game board, and tokens with which to play the game.  It contains a rule book that explains how the game works.  It does not, unfortunately, provide new players with tactical or deck-building advice, or even very much internal guidance within the cards themselves.  (There is, for example, a subset of cards that give bonuses to Cultists, but there are only three or four such cards--not enough to build a deck around.)

Thankfully, FFG apparently noticed some of the problems of the Core Set.  The set remains the same, but newer Call of Cthulhu LCG packs (called Asylum Packs) now come with a full three copies of each new card.  This helps facilitate efficient deck-building, which I can approve of.  New Asylum Packs are released every month, each containing three copies of twenty new unique cards.  They tend to retail for ten to twelve dollars a piece, which isn't bad at all.

Currently, I haven't found anyone to play the game with me, which is slightly frustrating.  My wife does not wish to learn the game, and I can't blame her, because this game is at least as complicated as Magic.  She prefers simpler games, which is fine.  I haven't managed to hook any of my friends, yet, and the game hasn't taken off at my friendly local game store.  I'm sure it's only a matter of time.  For now, though, I am not in an arms race to create decks that smash all my opponents, which means that I haven't purchased a lot of product.  I have made it known at the game shop that I am interested in supporting a monthly Call of Cthulhu game night, though, and apparently I am no the only one that has expressed such interest.  Hopefully within the next few months I will have a regular group of people with whom to play.  Until then, I'll be playing it solitaire--which, let me tell you, is also not the best way to learn a new game.  Maybe someone should suggest a starter pack of two ready-to-use decks to Fantasy Flight Games?

I do like that the game provides the thrill of opening new cards, finding interesting and powerful card combinations, building fun and unique decks, and playing intense strategic games against opponents.  I also like that this game is much easier on my wallet than any other trading card game I've seen.  Having only played the game against myself--and with subpar decks--I can't say for sure whether it's the best thing since television shows on DVD.  I've had fun, though, so far, and hope to continue to explore the world of Cthulhu, Miskatonic University, Yog-Sothoth, and the Order of the Silver Twilight.

The 40K Dilemma, Part Two

I've already discussed my struggles with deciding whether or not to jump into the Warhammer 40,000 hobby.  One of the issues is which army to get into.  I skipped over that problem in my last post because I knew it was the stickiest of all the issues.  With this post, I would like to discuss the issue.

There are fourteen supported armies in the 40k universe.  Most of those are quite customizable, which means there are a LOT of options.  (The Necron army is the one exception.  There are so few options that there is really only one way to build the army.  Supposedly, they will be getting a new codex next winter.  Hopefully that will expand the options for all the Necron players out there.)

I've thoroughly read the main Warhammer 40,000 rulebook, and have decided that close combat armies that focus on assault are not for me.  That rules out several armies, namely:  Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Tyranids, and the most popular builds of Chaos Daemons and Orks.  The last two can be built to focus on longer-range shooting attacks, although they rarely are, which I can only assume means that they're not actually that good at it.

I like the idea of an army that utilizes a lot of long-range shooting, taking out enemy units from a distance.  It seems, though, that a lot of the traditionally "shooty" armies are paper tigers.  They can hit hard, but they're really fragile.  I'm not sure I like that.  I think I'd prefer something with a bit more durability.  Although Tau, Necrons, Dark Eldar, and Eldar are all supposedly good at ranged warfare, they are also all relatively fragile.  (Again, the Necrons are an exception.  They're actually fairly tough to kill, but they have a special rule that nerfs them pretty badly.  If you kill a high enough percentage of the army, they "phase out," vanishing into the vapor, which is cool and flavorful, but not so good for the Necron player who wants to play an interesting game.  Most Necron opponents ignore the game objectives and just go for phase out.  BORING.)

That leaves five potential armies:  Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, Daemon Hunters, Witch Hunters, and Imperial Guard. 

Space Marines represent the most basic army.  They're fairly durable, decent at shooting, decent at close combat, versatile, customizable, and have multiple vehicle options for tanks and transports that are all very good.

Chaos Space Marines are very similar to Space Marines, but they serve the Chaos gods.  I'm okay with playing an evil army, especially since they have some interesting customization options when devoting units to a particular Chaos god.

Daemon Hunters are a branch of the Inquisition of the Empire of Man that defends humanity against the Chaos gods and their daemonic minions.  They have access to all the branches of the Imperial armed forces to aid them in their war against the Warp spawn.  Their elite Grey Knight space marines use powerful psychic attacks alongside conventional weapons, and Imperial Stormtroopers, with their powerful Rhino and Chimera troop transports, are feared across the universe.

Witch Hunters are devoted to weeding out heretics and the Warp-tainted enemies of the Empire of Man.  Their laws prohibit them from having "men at arms," so the Witch Hunters of the Inquisition recruit loyal women of the Imperium.  The "nuns with guns" are some of the most loyal and zealous soldiers in the universe, "purifying" the wicked with their blessed flamethrowers. 

I could have dismissed the Imperial Guard for being yet another paper tiger.  They are good at shooting, yet very fragile.  However, they make up for this with numbers.  The Imperial Guard conscripts and recruits billions of soldiers from across the Imperium.  An individual Guardsman is completely expendable, because there are plenty more as replacements.  Guardsman have access to some of the most fearsome tanks in the game, and their foot soldiers can lay down an devastating amount of firepower each round.  I haven't dismissed them as a possibility because, although individually they are very easy to kill, whole units survive because of sheer numbers, giving them a surprising amount of durability.

Now, there are also a slew of interesting fan-made codices as well, such as the Soul Drinkers, the Adeptus Astartes, or the Iron Fists.  But they do not have their own models, which would mean I'd have to convert the models from other armies, and that's just more work than I am really interested in putting into the game at this point. 

So, I can narrow down my options to five armies.  If I look at ideology, I can narrow it further.  Space Marines are, quite frankly, really boring.  Their fluff is just kind of blah.  Tactically, they may be interesting, but for generating a storyline, they fall flat.  Then there's the Witch Hunters, with their Sisters of Battle.  While the models are surprisingly interesting (a lot more cool armor and a lot less cleavage than you would expect), they're a little insane and zealous for my taste.  They kind of scare me.

Now, I can get behind Daemon Hunters, Chaos Space Marines, or Imperial Guard.  I just can't figure out which one most appeals to me!  I can't even decide if I want to commit to the whole Warhammer 40k hobby.  My life is so difficult.

The 40K Dilemma, Part One

I am a huge fan of science fiction. I don't think I could explain why; science fiction just somehow fascinates me. There are a wide variety of science fiction universes out there to choose from. Star Wars. Star Trek. Halo. Alien vs. Predator. Terminator. Asimov's Foundation series. Dozens of intellectual properties (or IPs, for those who want to save their breathe) to feed my hunger.

One IP that has particularly intrigued me for the past year is Warhammer 40,000, commonly referred to as Warhammer 40K, or just 40K. It is a grim depiction of humanity in the 41st Millenium. (That's roughly 39,000 years in the future, for those who haven't been paying attention.) The Empire of Man is vast, spreading across many thousands of solar systems, connected by the Warp, an alternate dimension that can only be safely navigated by psychic "astropaths." Mankind zealously worships the Emperor, dead for millenia, and rigorously pursues all perceived threats to humankind--daemons, heretics, and xenos.

Daemons are sadistic creatures of the Warp who enter our universe to serve the will of the Chaos Gods. Heretics are humans who have succumbed to the seductive power of the Warp and turned their back on the Emperor's Will. Xenos are the many alien races that inhabit the universe: orks, eldar, tau, necrons, dark eldar, and tyranids.

The champions of the war against these threats are the space marines. Although divided into thousands of different chapters, with storied pasts and varied tactics, all space marines are devote in their defense of the righteous, and zealous in their punishment of the guilty.

One of the things I find fascinating about this IP is that it is not a hopeful view of the future. Technologically and culturally, humankind is in shambles. Techpriests worship the Machine Spirit, an embodiment of the Emperor, and are the last threads linking humanity to their once-powerful technological achievements. Despite their love and devotion to the technology of the past, however, techpriests are forbidden to innovate and create new, "dangerous" or "heretical" technologies. Technology, thus, is not merely stagnant, but in decay.

The Empire of Man is constantly at war. That's largely their own fault, since they refuse to get along with any of the xenos that share the galaxy with them, not even the ones who would likely be willing to play nice, like the eldar or the tau. It makes for some exciting story-telling, but it also drains economies and forms an incredibly paranoid society.

For the past year or so, I have been immersing myself further and further into the Warhammer 40K universe. I have listened to podcasts, read blogs, read novels, dabbled in computer games, and recently acquired a card game based in the IP called Space Hulk: Death Angel. (That game is definitely the geekiest thing I own. It's based on a popular miniatures-based board game from the 80s called Space Hulk. The minis game requires several hours of assembly before it can be played, so Fantasy Flight Games developed a cheaper, card-based version that can be played right out of the box.)

One step I have yet to take is the tabletop war game. Like Space Hulk, it is played with miniature figurines, which must be assembled and, typically, painted. The game takes place on a 4' by 4' or 4' by 6' table with sculpted terrain that can be moved around or replaced to make for varied gameplay. The two-inch-tall army men get to march around the table in six-inch chunks, attempting to kill each other by rolling lots of dice and hoping for very high numbers. It's super-duper geeky, but actually seems really fun.

There are several issues keeping me from diving into this game, and it's nerdplosion isn't one of them. Looking like a nerd doesn't scare me. I used to play Magic: The Gathering.

There is, however, the issue of cost, both in time and money. To play a single game requires the purchase of a minimum of a dozen miniatures, which is something along the lines of a hundred dollar investment. Then, there's the matter of having to glue together the figures and paint them. On top of all that work, one has to purchase at least one codex--a guide book that details how a particular army functions. Purchasing the codex of every army is recommended, though, just to be prepared. You're playing a wargame, after all; you should know your enemy.

So let's say I take the plunge and commit to purchasing and assembling a miniature army, and to purchasing and studying several codices. Now I have a second hurdle: finding an opponent. I already know that a local game store holds a 40K night every Thursday night, so that's an option. But I don't really know anyone who plays the game. At least some of my friends play Magic, or Dominion, or Munchkin. Warhammer 40K? Not a single acquaintance. With other games, I can usually get my wife to happily participate. I really don't think she'll want to clear a table-sized area in our tiny apartment to set up two plastic and/or metal armies and roll a bunch of dice. She is willing to help me paint the figurines, which is kind of her. I have the best wife ever. But actually moving theme around with a tiny tape measure and declaring what I want to shoot at? I can see the exact expression on her face at the suggestion, and it involves rolling eyes.

The third part of the dilemma involves the big decision of which army to build. The hobby is expensive enough that supporting multiple armies is infeasible. I could go on for quite a long time about THAT issue, so I'll write another blog post later details my struggles.

So, as much as I enjoy the 40K universe, I'm still undecided. The miniatures game. Is it worth it? I don't know. I can't decide.

What's In A Game?

What makes a good game? Why are some games fun and interesting, while others are just meh? Here are some criteria, in no particular order, that I use when I try a new board game or card game:

1. Easy to Learn

The game has to wow me right off the bat. Now, some games may have a neat gimmick (like Killer Bunnies) or take place in an interesting setting (like Warhammer 40,000 or Betrayal at House on the Hill), and for such "fluffy" games, I'm willing to be patient and learn a complex rule system.

For the most part, though, I enjoy a game that I can pick up and learn easily. It has the advantage of not losing my attention, which can be a bit short, span-wise. Also, I can turn around and teach the game to others.

2. Depth of Strategy

Easy to learn, difficult to master. Those are traits I really enjoy in a game. Card games like Magic: The Gathering or Dominion, for example, have a lot of subtle interactions between the cards. Similarly, the base mechanics of Carcassonne are easy to grasp, yet the game provides many strategic options and a plethora of decisions to make.

A writer and game designer whom I admire greatly once wrote an article about the difference between choices and decisions in a game. It took him an entire article to fully explain his thesis, but the gist of it was that some games provide you with many choices, or options, and you simply have to choose the best option. Other games, however, create moments wherein your options suddenly become limited, and you must make a decision about which route to take.

I believe that a good game backs players into corners and forces them to make strategic decisions. "Do I sacrifice my bishop to put myself on offense, or do I just move my king out of immediate danger, but stay in a defensive mode?" That's a game-changing decision, and it adds tension, which I enjoy. "What do I kill with this Lightning Bolt?" on the other hand, is a choice, which may create a decision for my opponent, but is usually just simple mathematics for me.

3. Replayability

Some games have a very heavy story element to them, which is cool. It can be harmful, though. It's hard to justify spending sixty dollars on a game that's only good for a couple plays. Murder mystery games, for example, suffer from this problem. You play through them once, and from then on you know whodunnit. Even if you can get a completely fresh group to play with you, you already know the story. The Horus Heresy game, I am told, has the same problem. While it may be fun to play out the final battle to defend the Emperor of Mankind against the corrupt heretic forces, after six or seven games, it gets stale.

Single-player video games can suffer from this same problem, although in their defense, they often take a few dozen hours to finish. Fifty dollars for a game that takes twenty five hours to beat equals two dollars per hour of entertainment, which makes it four or five times better than hitting up a movie theater, as an investment. Board games that lack replayability, however, can sometimes only boast five or six hours of fun before becoming uninteresting. At that rate, you'd be better off taking your sweetheart to a water park.

4. Rewards Skillful Play

I enjoy feeling rewarded for my efforts when I'm trying hard and playing well. There are some games--Killer Bunnies comes to mind--that, when boiled down, are almost entirely random. Roulette is the same way. You're just hoping to get lucky. I don't care for that. I like feeling that my efforts are paying off.

With games like Carcassonne or Magic: The Gathering, on the other hand, you can actually watch as you gain points on the score chart or see your opponent's life total diminish. It's fabulous.

5. Randomization

As much as I like being able to play skillfully and be rewarded, I also like a bit of randomness in my games. Chess is all well and good, but the really good players know when and how it's going to end long before less-experienced players such as myself. A bit of randomization, like rolling dice or shuffling cards, helps balance the game enough that newer or less-skilled players can still have a shot at winning. It adds a bit of danger and excitement to the game.

6. Non-Aggressive Strategies

This isn't as important to me as some of the other points I've mentioned, but I am not a mean person at heart. Sometimes, I have trouble being cutthroat enough to win games. I like games like Dominion, Carcassonne, or even (if you play your cards right) Magic: The Gathering, that provide strategies wherein you don't actually have to interact with the other players. That way, I can avoid upsetting anybody. That's probably why I love combo decks in Magic: The Gathering so much. I can just do my own thing, ignore my opponent, and try to just win before my opponent can kill me. Although that can upset some opponents, too, so I guess I can't always avoid making people mad. Sigh.

7. Fun

This is hard to quantify. Different people enjoy different things.

Here's my beef with games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars, or World of Warcraft. You do the exact same thing over, and over, and over again. Now, that would be fine if what you were doing was enjoyable, but it's just... not.

I sure do loves me some Dominion, though.