NetRunner is the latest collectable card game (CCG) from Wizards of the Coast, designed in collaboration with R. Talsorian Games and based on RTG's futuristic role-playing game, Cyberpunk 2020. It's strictly a two-player game: one player takes the role of the huge Corporation (or Corp) trying to forward various schemes for economic domination, while the other takes the role of a NetRunner (or Runner) , a futuristic computer hacker trying to pierce the Corporation's security and expose its operations for fun and profit.
NetRunner suprised me; I'm no collector, and I loathe most CCGs for one or more of the following reasons: (a) Whoever spends more money (and thus has more cards) has an advantage; (b) The system rewards obsessive minimaxing in deck construction, so that a casual player, however clever, is sunk; and so that a "pick-up" game is difficult without a deck prepared in advance; (c) Most of the strategic choices are performed during deck construction, even before you see your opponent. Often the strategic choices are so coerced by the cards you draw that a computer program could play the game adequately.
NetRunner is not, however, just another CCG. First, the game is asymmetric. The Corp and Runner decks are completely separate, with different backs. A starter set contains one deck of each type. The nucleus of the Corp deck are Agendas, the schemes by which the Corporation hopes to manipulate the business world. If the Corp can protect any Agenda long enough to accomplish it, he "scores" it.
The Runner, contrariwise, wants to discover these Agendas and publish them or sell them to the highest bidder. She accomplishes this by "running" the Corporation's computer system, i.e. trying to hack through its protection to see what lies in its main computer banks. If she manages to penetrate the Corp security guarding an Agenda, she steals it from the Corp, scoring it herself.
Whoever scores 7 Agenda points first wins. Some Agendas are harder for the Corp to score than others, but give more points or have some other beneficial effect when scored. Stealing a high-powered Agenda, however, is no harder than stealing any other, so it behooves the Corp not to put too many difficult Agendas in his deck.
The Corp player protects his Agendas by using computer security programs, called ICE. In a clever bit of game mechanics, even agendas that are in the Corporation's hand or draw pile can be stolen by the Runner, so the Corp cannot afford to concentrate his resources too much, or he will leave a weak spot. Other Corp cards include Nodes, which confer some play advantage, and Operations, which are one-time special actions.
The Corporation begins his turn by drawing a card, after which he has three actions. Each action can be used to do one of the following things: (a) obtain one "bit" (see below); (b) draw another card; (c) "install" an Agenda, Node, Upgrade, or ICE card into his play area; (d) "advance" an Agenda by one point; (e) play an Operations card.
The Runner has four actions on her turn, which can be used to: (a) obtain one "bit" (see below); (b) draw a card; (c) "install" a Program, Hardware, or Resource card; (e) play a Prep card; (f) Make a Run on a data fort.
"Bits" are the money in the game; most cards have a Bit cost, which must be paid to use the card. Bits are obtained by expending actions, or by playing certain cards.
Agendas or Nodes must be played into a "data fort", which the Corporation can create at will. Each fort can have only one Agenda or Node, but can also contain any number of Upgrades and be protected by any number of ICE cards. With a few exceptions, all of the cards the Corporation plays into data forts are initially face down; they only become revealed when the Corporation activates them ("called "rezzing") or if the Runner reveals them by some means. Agendas must be "advanced" a certain number of times, each costing one action and one bit, to score them; once they are scored (or stolen), they are set aside. Nodes, when rezzed, confer some benefit to the corporation; for instance, Holovid Campaign gives the Corp one bit at the beginning of each turn. Most of the Corp cards have a cost in bits; this cost is paid not when the cards are installed, but only when they are rezzed; thus the Corp can install cards that he cannot yet pay for, permitting an element of bluff. Upgrade cards typically make it harder for the Runner to penetrate a given fort in some way.
ICE cards are the Corporation's padlocks and guard dogs; without ICE, nothing prevents the Runner from waltzing in and stealing any Agenda as soon as the Corp installs it. To get into a data fort, the runner must deal with every ICE card that is protecting the fort; if he cannot or chooses not to defeat a given ICE, it affects him in some way. Most ICE cards merely stop the Runner's attempt to get into the fort; others try to track him down or injure him in some way. ICE is needed not only to protect Agendas and Nodes, but also Headquarters (the Corporation hand of cards) and Research and Development (The Corporation's draw pile)! Even the Corporation's secret discards can be rifled by the Runner if not protected. There are limits to how well the Corp can protect a fort: first, the stronger ICE is very expensive in bits, and thus robs the Corp pool for other uses. Second, each piece of ICE installed into a fort costs one extra for each piece of ICE already in the fort; for instance, adding a fourth piece of ICE to a fort costs 3 bits in addition to the cost of Rezzing the ICE card. Together, these constraints put a nice practical limitation on how well a given fort can be protected.
The Runner, for her part, has Icebreaker cards with which to defeat the Corp ICE, other Programs that confer other advantages, Hardware cards that enhance her ability to attack the Corp or protect herself from backlash, Resources that permit repeated special actions, and Prep cards that permit one-time special actions (like the Corp's Operations). Defeating ICE is no cakewalk, of course; in addition to the right Icebreakers, the Runner typically has to expend bits to break each piece of ICE. Some Icebreakers are more economical to use against relatively weak ICE; others are geared toward defeating more powerful security.
At the beginning of the game, the advantage in the ICE versus Icebreakers contest is to the Corp; often, the runner will not have the right type of Icebreaker that she needs to get through a particular ICE, even if the ICE is weak. As the game progresses, however, the Runner will obtain a set of Icebreakers that together can take on anything. A Runner well-equipped with Icebreakers and bits can defeat pretty much anything the Corp can do to protect a fort; it's always easier to break into someplace, given time and effort, than it is to keep people out.
No Runner can break a tough fort turn after turn, however; she needs time to regenerate her stockpile of bits. Thus, the challenge for the Corp in the later game is to install his Agendas and advance them while the Runner is recharging, and to get the Runner to waste her bits going after decoys or defending herself against countermeasures. Of course, the Corp cannot neglect safeguarding Headquarters and R & D, or the Runner will pick off his Agendas while they are still in the Corporation's hand or draw pile.
The two players are thrust by their objectives and capabilities into completely different roles: The Corp must defend all the time, never sure when the Runner will attack; on the other hand, much of the timing in the game is controlled by the Corp, especially with regard to when he chooses to install an Agenda. The two sides play very differently: indeed NetRunner is almost two games using similar rules, which adds greatly to the variety of play.
NetRunner differs from most CCGs in a variety of other ways. Like many games, it has a pool of points, in this case bits, from which you pay for cards that you wish to play. Unlike most, however, this pool does not regenerate from turn to turn, so managing your "cash flow" is vital. Many CCGs allow a player as many actions as they are capable of paying for, and permit all cards previously played to affect any given turn; for instance, in Magic: The Gathering, all conjured creatures not just played may attack. This often results in a "rich get richer" flaw, wherein an early advantage by one player prevents the other from ever catching up, and permits (even encourages) "killer combinations" of cards that can unbalance a game utterly. NetRunner avoids these problems by restricting the number of actions each player can take. No matter how many bits you have and how many great cards are in your hand, you only get a certain number of actions. This restriction not only balances the game by preventing either player from doing too much in one turn, but it also creates a number of strategic choices: Do I get some more cards now, or build up my pool of bits, or get this card into play?
The card flow is also good, since either player can choose to draw up to four cards in a turn (by forgoing all else); this reduces the likelihood that an unlucky shuffle will derail one's game.
This attention to playability is even more apparent when the composition of the card decks are examined. Unlike almost all other CCGs that I have seen, NetRunner can be played with a single starter deck! This superb quality results from two factors: the cards are carefully balanced against one another for cost and utility, and the sorting of the starter sets is excellent: my set of two starter decks had not a single duplicate card, and there was enough ICE (for the Corp) and Icebreakers (for the Runner) to make both decks easily playable. This fine card distribution permits the collectable aspect of the game to provide interesting variety, without requiring a player to buy fantastic numbers of cards in order to have an effective playing deck. Indeed, the mix of cards seems to encourage the creation of balanced, all-around decks rather than the super-specialized "killer" decks that so many other CCGs feature as a matter of course. Some of my friends and I play a "no duplicates" house rule - every card in the deck must be different. NetRunner cards are so varied that it's easy to make a playable deck this way without owning a lot of cards, and it maximizes the variety in the game nicely.
NetRunner is, in many ways a CCG that is much more "game" than "collectable", a development that I find enormously welcome. I applaud Wizards of the Coast for creating a CCG that game players, not merely collectors or fans, can enjoy.