So we have finished all the artwork and game system point designations for the Starter Booster Pack from the grydscaen RPG Trading Card game. Next comes formatting for print. I have already reached out to the printer and we are working on the logistics for the printing of the booster packs which will contain 6 cards.
Cards included in the Booster Pack:
The six character cards included in the booster pack are some of the Major Arcana cards.
There are additional cards called Suit cards which are made up of Wands, Coins, Cups and Swords. The Suit cards are Helper cards which provide additional skills, objects, powers and credits to a character in an attack.
About the Game:
This game is a card based Role Playing game which utilizes an optional game board that lays out the environment. This game takes place in the world of the grydscaen cyberpunk series in the region called The City, the Echelons and the Zone. The Packrats reside in the Zone with the Packrat Sprawl, their headquarters underground in subway tunnels in the Echelons. The Psi Faction resides in Haven 5. The Jester and Jazz hacker guilds are in Haven 15. The Elite government is stationed in the City along with the Elite government mainframe.
The game is played with a set of cards that when done will make up a Tarot deck. The game will have play pieces used for credits (money) as in the “grydscaen” series of books and widgets to move around the board. A small player guide with information about the characters, locale, drugs, hacking, data and psychic powers will be created to assist in game play.
The main objective of the game is to Hack into the Elite Government mainframe by any means necessary using your skills and strengths in Intrusion, Social Engineering, Hardware and Networking.
Game pieces will include virus shaped tokens to move characters around the board or to collect viruses and use against your opponent, Feng Shui coins for credits (each coin being 100 credits), black round tokens for reputation points and dice to roll for each turn. Game Board design is currently in progress but the game can be played without the board.
Card Basics:
The Major Arcana cards of the Trading Card game which are a part of the Tarot deck will include the character cards. The Suit cards are additional cards and will be psi inducer drugs, psychic powers, and data, skills, apps or trap/obstacle cards. Suit cards are Swords, Wands, Coins and Cups. The Coins cards will include credits from the credits system in the game which is the monetary system in grydscaen. Working with data messengers and buying apps, online time, or psi inducer drugs will take credits to procure to help with your objective. The Wands will be psychic powers and psi inducer drugs. The Cups will be hacking skills and data. The Swords will be trap and attack cards. Some characters from other series by Natsuya Uesugi may appear on some of the Suit cards based on their relevance to the objective.
Character cards can be combined with Suit helper cards to improve strengths, gain credits or tools, harm your opponent or reach the objective of hacking the government mainframe.
An individual card includes, on the front: character information if applicable, card number/designation and character name if a Major Arcana card, and Suit name if a Suit card. On the back: is character summary if relevant, Strengths/Stats, game rules for that specific card type/character, and any special rules/movements if relevant (see sample below).
The coin system using credits is still being designed and we are looking for what type of widget would be good to represent the money in the game. The Worldbuilding reference is currently all 8 books of the grydscaen series (#8 “grydscaen: dissonance” will be published end October 2016). The small game guide is in the design phase. The Magic or Hacking system is completed. The Objective of the game to hack the Elite government mainframe is completed.
Obstacles:
There are Zone Police, the Triumverate which rules the Elite government, Elite ministers, and the Imperial Guard at the palace that will all stop your hacker characters from gaining access to the Elite government mainframe.
There are also hackers from hacker guilds like the Jazz Hacker Guild, the Jester Hacker Guild, Mage the leader of the The Terror Hack, and Gryphon the leader of the Black Holes that will assist your or may also try to interfere with your hacking. There are also Suit cards for data messengers, other hackers and drug dealers that might want a piece of the action or can assist you in your mission for the right price.
Credits can be stolen from your opponent or the government as well as can be procured. Watch your back when you are partnering with a data messenger or a hacker as they might not cooperate with you while you are partnering with them.
Helper Cards:
Helper Cards include psychic powers, data, hacking apps and tools, psi inducer drugs and the Newsfeed. The Newsfeed can be used to broadcast misinformation, get the government to reveal sensitive data, or as a hacker you can take over the Newsfeed broadcast satellite and piss off the Elite government which the Packrats like to do. Some psi inducer cards like the “neurocyne” card enhance a specific Strength/Ability but will slow down game play or cause the player to be unable to attack for a turn, or lose a turn entirely. Other Suit cards like those for psychic/codess power may increase a character’s endurance and Networking score, as long as they control the dose of the drug which is ruled by other Helper cards. Using a “carry/procure data” card along with a “data messenger” card may enhance your Hardware score or give you access to additional tools. The “Network Port Sniffing” card will increase your Network score.
The Strengths/Abilities:
INTRUSION – This is your ability to hack and your skill level. It can be in the case of Sati Ima, the pilot, your stealth and agility score. The higher this score the more likely you will be able to achieve your hacking mission. The highest individual character card score is 100 but your character card can be combined with other hacker character cards or Suit cards to add to your Intrusion score so it is beneficial to find the right combination to achieve the highest Intrusion score possible to give you the strength needed to successfully hack the Elite government mainframe. Script Kiddie, Web Fu and Inject are under this strength.
SOCIAL ENGINEERING – This is the ability to influence people (your opponent or other characters in the game play) to get information out of them that can be used in your hacks against the government. If your Social Engineering score is high you can guarantee you will procure passwords and login information or even obtain fingerprints or steal tokens for two-factor authentication from ministers and other targets. You can also use phishing email attacks to gain access to corporate systems and insert keylogging malware and virus software into the Elite government’s systems or into the Corporation’s network to help control the economy or the stock market. Lockpicking and swiping RFID badge electronics in close proximity to a user is under this strength.
NETWORK – This strength has two possible meanings. The hacker meaning determines how well you can get through a firewall, or access a network and get into a server or other system on the gridscan which is the network of everything. Everything in the City, the Echelons and the Zone is linked into the gridscan in one way or another, including traffic lights, payment systems at retailers, the satellite and broadcast system used by the Newsfeed, the transportation system which includes the state of the art subway system and the dome system over the City which protects that area. The Network skill enables you to find an IP address, take over a website, access a database and change client data, bypass a security setting or enables you to remote RDP into a machine. Firewall is also under this strength. This strength works with the Intrusion strength to give you a better chance at achieving your mission. The other possible meaning of this strength which affects character cards like “Lino Dejarre” is the size of his people network. Lino is not a hacker per say but he does have a significantly large network of hacker contacts which provide him information and will hack for him. The “Lino Dejarre” card and the “Julian ‘Blue’ Iskafiin” card use the second definition of the NETWORK strength.
HARDWARE – This is your ability to use different hardware and master its uses like the NEK hardline terminal which the Packrats configure for hacking, piloting a Quadrion Isshin mobile frame or Shie Falcon transformable mobile bike (motorcycle) or even using a sophisticated handheld with various apps and tools such as those the “Rom” character uses to compile data. This score can be combined with INTRUSION and NETWORK to go after the Elite government mainframe. Partnering with other hackers or data messengers can combine these scores to make a larger attack.
The Progress:
We are looking to have the Starter Booster Pack available in print early 2017. A first printing run of initial sets will be printed to test the game play. If you are interested in learning more about the play tests for the grydscaen RPG Trading Card game, contact/instant message @NatsuyaUesugi on Facebook.
We have contacted the printer and are waiting for a quote for the first print run. and we will begin getting the print ready files completed using InDesign by the end of October 2016. All cards are designed and coloured in Photoshop with black and white lineart done by hand with a 0.5 mechanical pencil on manga paper.
At this moment the majority of the Major Arcana will be in colour with some yet to be designed. Some cards will be black and white unless we can get the funding for full colour. We will try to keep all the Major Arcana cards in colour. I do all the artwork myself so the limitations on a full colour card set is based on time and availability. We do not currently have an online vendor for sale of the game but we are looking into it.
About the Project:
This is a dream of mine, creating a Tarot Card deck that I have had for a long time and which was solidified when I created the Talen Cards for “The Prophet” trilogy. In “The Prophet” novels we created a whole set of cards that the teenage Prophet uses for divination. I spent ample time in college reading Tarot cards for students in the dorms and I have various Tarot decks myself so I thought that it might be interesting to create my own using the characters from grydscaen and some of my other series.
Sample Card:
This is the front and back of the “Faid Callen: Packrat” card from the grydscaen RPG Trading Card game booster pack which represents “The Hierophant” in the Tarot deck. Forgive the spelling error as this is just the draft version of the card.
Stick around for more updates on the grydscaen RPG Trading Card game as we design the game board and continue work on the character Major Arcana cards and the Suit cards.
Thanks for reading.