Terminal Thoughts

This is a write up on my thoughts about Terminal Directive, the ambitious new expansion to Android: Netrunner from Fantasy Flight Games. After the large red spoiler tag, there will be spoilers. Prior to that tag, I ruin it for you.

Before I dive in to the nitty gritty though, some background. I've been playing ANR since 2014. I've been running a league for almost as long in West Seattle. I'm what you could call a fanboy. I own two sets of all the cards (three of the core, of course), all the books, Android related board games and even the World of Androids art book - the pre-order version with the art prints and the playmat. So yeah, I love me some Netrunner.

Like many folks who love the game, I've been having a hard time lately. Some of the card pool has been dangerously wonky bordering on un-fun. Cards like Sifr, Faust, Sensie Actors Union and a few others have made the game a bit of a downer. I'm not going to get into that further in this review. I just wanted to point out the state of things as we all waited for Terminal Directive.

Okay, here we go...

Let's start with the superficial good stuff. The regular, tournament legal cards in TD are a lot of fun and really inject some life back into the metagame. Combined with the recent change to the Most Wanted List (the list of cards that are restricted in tournament play), and suddenly the game feels fresh again. Weyland especially feels like it got some love this time around. The faction had been in dire need of a leg up dating all the way back to the core set.

Besides the new card pool, the rest of the (ridiculously over-sized) box was supposed to be all about the (Pandemic) Legacy-style narrative campaign play that would tell a story. This is where we're going to get into the meat of my review.

My friend Kyle and I decided to play together. We'd each purchased Terminal Directive so for the campaign portion we just decided to use my card set.

• Problem 1: We both bought TD because we want to own the tournament legal cards. Once we decided to play together, we had an entire extra set of campaign cards not being used. Awkward.

I chose Weyland and he chose Steve Cambridge and we agreed on a first time and place. Each campaign comes with a deck of stickers and cards broken down into numbered sets which are to be opened and activated upon certain triggers. 

Netrunner can be described as complex or fiddly depending on your perspective. Terminal Directive adds a whole extra layer of triggers, rules and abilities. That's not really a plus or a minus, but it might be for some folks. I can't really recommend this as a product for new players. They are going to miss half of their triggers which might actually ruin the narrative play.

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SPOILERS

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Each player has a PAD, a card board display where you keep track of various stickers and modifiers for the game. The story involves a murder mystery where it seems a bioroid has committed a murder, despite its theoretical protective programming. The runner wants to aid the NAPD in capturing the murderer while Weyland wants to snag the bioroid for use in its Hunter Seeker program.

We both had the two same basic triggers to start with - Win 2 games to open set X or lose 4 games to open set Y.  Additionally, upon setup, I was given three new agendas that I had to insert in my deck, replacing three cards of my choice (keeping the deck legal for regular Netrunner rules.). This was my first taste of new campaign cards. 

Our first day, we played three games. Kyle won the first one pretty easily. The second game I won with a Sea Source/Scorch combo, but I barely pulled it off. The third game, Kyle won again, allowing him to open his second set of objectives.

• Problem 2: While I theoretically was allowed to change my deck between each game, I hadn't brought extra cards with me as I wasn't aware that it would be needed. Very few folks play a single game of Netrunner at a time and very few folks bring binders of cards with them. Some warning as to this situation might have been helpful. For example, "Be sure to have cards that you might want to swap into your decks between rounds."

Kyle and I decided to call it a day after that. I went home a little deflated. My one win didn't get me anything which means that my PAD looked exactly the same as it had after I'd set it up. Three games in and I hadn't touched my stack of stickers or cards outside of three new agendas I'd gotten at the start.

After changing up my deck, we agreed on a second day to meet a few days later and I went in re-invigorated and ready to play. One of the reasons that I picked Kyle to play against is that we are pretty evenly matched so I figured it was my turn to steam roll him for a bit.

Our third game was close for a little bit. One of the things I struggled with was agenda flooding (remember, no Jackson Howard as we were playing with the suggested rules of the cards in the TD box, plus one core set). There were very few times when I didn't have two agendas in HQ. Kyle was always ahead of me in cash which meant SEA Source was a dead card. He was rich enough to continually break my ice, which meant that installing and advancing was a sure fire way to lose an agenda.

In the end, Kyle won the fourth game and then the fifth.

But after losing four games, I was finally able to break open a new set! I was really excited because during the course of his games Kyle's PAD had literally FILLED with stickers and triggers. He had all kinds of conditions, cautions and fun things to do during his turn. Mine hadn't changed since we'd started playing.

Of course, losing four games was a sign that I was doing poorly in the narrative. The condition on my PAD triggered and I opened a NEW set of cards! My new cards were three new agendas. They were 2/0's and the story card that came along with Corporate Oversight (the new agenda) explained that I'd been doing so badly that Weyland had to step in and take matters into their hands.

But the cards didn't really help me. In fact, despite the new agenda's ability to rez a piece of ice for free when the agenda was scored, I found my effective card pool even thinner. But I wanted to give it a try and we played on. 

We played a sixth game, which I lost, and then a seventh which we didn't finish because Kyle completed his last objective and won the campaign. 

The end.

• Problem 3: I was punished so severely for losing game after game that there was no story element for me and no chance to re-balance things. This feels like poor playtesting on FFG's part.
• Problem 4: I was now looking at a stack of cards and stickers that I wasn't going to be using and were just ...trash. This was a huge waste of card board in so many ways. 
• Problem 5: For me, the entire story of TD went like this: "There's a murder and you need to solve it. You didn't. The end." There were no beats in between. That's not a story, it's just a result.
• Problem 6: If you take out the one game that I won, it means that the entire narrative could have played out in just six games. That's about 3 hours worth of play. Not much meat on those bones.
• Problem 7: There were massive editing failures at all levels in TD. Confusing and unclear rules and triggers from a game perspective and just sloppy copyrighting. The whole game feels rushed and not properly play tested for balance or clarity.

My sticker sheet at the end of the game:

My PAD at the end of the game: (Those are 8 empty slots)

For comparison: On the left - An unused full stack of corporate cards and stickers.   In the middle- The cards and stickers I didn't use or see during the campaign.  On the right - the cards and stickers I saw and used in the campaign. 

Now, you might be tempted to say, "Connor, you're just sore because you lost six of seven games." You'd be partially right. I was sore. But I wasn't sore because I lost those games (Well, any more than any of us would be against an opponent we're usually evenly matched against). I was sore because this was supposed to be about a story. One I'd been waiting almost a year to embark on.  To say that it was flat, disappointing and a let down would be an understatement. Kyle gets lots of credit for building a solid deck, but I also have to wonder if there were inherit balance issues.

BUT

Let's talk about some good things. Netrunner is a great game and the idea of adding a narrative into an already existing game is brilliant! There's so much room to improve here that I'm thrilled at the possibilities.

Imagine: Quarterly data packed sized story adventures that come out, maybe between or in conjunction with regular data packs (This month: A Mars story!). They have a fold out sheet, a narrative a list of triggers and cards and stickers that come in packs. It's a role playing game in a box! Bring back old characters! Have crazy powerful cards! Go nuts because they're only allowed in the narrative games. Make an over arcing story that connects between packs! Create an online component! So many things you could do here that would require little investment on FFG's part and would create a second mini-community within Netrunner, one that would inspire the stay-at-home players to feel more involved as well as giving the competitive community more to salivate over.

Netrunner is my favorite game (and I can safely say I am a hard core gamer). Terminal Directive has some great cards and the seeds of some good ideas. In general, I think FFG does a solid job. They make mistakes, and TD is one of them. But that doesn't mean good things can't come out of this.

If you're thinking about buying TD, my suggestion is: Do it. If you're planning on playing the narrative, my suggestion is: Do it. *But* - bring your cards with you. Rebuild after each play. And don't use just one core. Use whatever card pool you and your opponent agree upon.  

In the scheme of things, we got some great new cards for four of the factions and FFG took a chance on something new and creative. It didn't pan out this time. I wish they'd handled the whole thing a little differently.

Doesn't mean I'm not working on my latest Skorpios deck as we speak.

Cheers, 

Connor

Android: Netrunner Ladies Night Thoughts

I'm going to jump into the details of this event shortly, but I wanted to give some quick background on myself and our league.

Our Android: Netrunner league, the West Seattle Cyberpunks, is only slightly more than a year old and I've only been the league administrator for just over a year. I started playing Netrunner right around the time the league was formed, in early 2014. One of the things that drew me to the game was its view of the future, which included a beautifully diverse cast of characters. In fact, I'd just completed writing my second novel, set in a near future in which the main character had a job as a 'runner' (no relation to hacking). It was an amazing coincidence and one that pulled me into the game very quickly.

A year later, after finishing an 8 week league cycle, we decided to have a series of one off events mixed in with some casual play and learn to play events for awhile. That's when the idea for a ladies only event was born.

I've been a gamer my whole life and I've been the type of gamer who has almost always played games with my female partners. I also typically play with men who include their partners. So for me, it feels natural to game with women, whether it's a board game or an RPG. Having never played in a league setting (I didn't come from a M:TG background), it felt strange to me that so many men played A:NR, yet so few women. Especially since women are so well represented in A:NR.

Our league has had a few female players over the last year, but two that have been with us almost since the start: Hilary and Emma. Both of them are smart, fun players and I knew that as soon as I thought of the idea, that they'd be the ones to take the reins and handle this right.

Anyway, we had a total of seven ladies show the evening of the event and another three said they wanted to come but couldn't make it. We let them take the leagues main play area (we have a tournament space we regularly play in called the Thunderdome). The boys all played in the cafe.

Everything seemed to go well. We heard lots of laughing and yells over in the cafe. Someone called out, "I'm never playing against Jinteki again!" which made us all laugh.

The next day, I sent out an email to all of the ladies that came to the event and that I had contact information for and asked a few questions about their experience.

There was a mixed reaction as to whether things felt different without the boys present. Some women felt it was exactly the same, other said they did notice a difference in a positive way. No one reported a negative change.

There was a general sense that the more experienced a female gamer was, the more likely it was she experienced what Hilary referred to as 'micro-aggressions' when playing in predominantly male groups. For the most part though, most everyone seemed to think that while this was still the case in the A:NR community, it was less prevalent than in other game circles. (Just a note to fellow league admins out there - in the year that I've done this job, I've had two incidents where female players have come to me to complain. I chose to send out a blunt email that made it clear that there would be zero tolerance for any kind of harassment or discrimination. So far, so good.)

When I asked about future events, most of the women reported that while the event was fun and that they'd attend another similar event, some missed playing with familiar male players or that the level of competition was more significant than the gender of the players. I'll also note here that the ladies got along well enough that there was talk among them of organizing their own separate meetups again.

Lastly, when asked about things that might draw more women to the game, pretty much everyone reported the same thing. That is, just expose more people in general to the game and more women will be drawn to it.

I have to agree. While I think having a ladies A:NR event was a great move and we may do more of them, the best selling point to gender (and racial) diversity in the A:NR community is the game itself. I'm going to call the night a success and I highly encourage any and all female A:NR players out there to work with your local groups and get your own ladies A:NR event going. I think we can all agree, more nets must be run.

Cheers,
Connor

Breaking the Ice on Netrunner

A genetically modified teen girl who has tricked out her computer - that looks like a lovable little toy dinosaur - with her own personal hacking code has broken into a remote computer server of a massive corporation that has a station on the moon called Heinlein. But it turns out that they were expecting her and the trap waiting for her scrambles a massive chunk of data on her computer and she's barely able to unplug her neural connection before her brain is entirely fried.

That's a sample turn in the game called Android: Netrunner. I'm going to make this post brief, but I really need to explain to you all why this game has changed my life.

First, I've been playing games since I was a wee one. I learned chess at six. I moved on quickly to Dungeons & Dragons, Axis & Allies and plenty of others. I got in early on the Collectible Card Game (CCG) movement. As the years rolled on, I hopped on board the euro train with games like Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne and Ticket To Ride. But it wasn't until May of this year that I began working at a Friendly Local Gaming Store (or FLGS for those of you not in the know), and a customer introduced me to Android: Netrunner. It was love at first play.

Android: Netrunner, by Fantasy Flight Games is the re-imagining of the Richard Garfield designed, late 90s CCG, called Netrunner. Garfield created Magic the Gathering and after he'd moved on, he wanted to create something that was a little deeper, a little heavier, a little brainier. His vision of Netrunner never quite caught on and the game stalled more than a decade ago. Fantasy Flight licensed the game and, took many of the core mechanics, put it into the universe they'd created for a board game called Android, and created a masterpiece.

But enough history. I said this would be a short post and I'm already getting long winded. The skinny! The game is a two player only card game that lasts ~30-45 minutes. The game isn't difficult *but* it is complex. It really helps if your first go through you have someone who knows how to play who can guide you.

So, what is the game? One player plays one of multiple ruthless mega corporations while the other player plays a 'runner', a hacker attempting to break into the corporation and steal information. It's a card game, but it's not a collectible one. There are no 'rares' or 'booster packs'. There are expansions, to be sure, but everyone gets the same cards. No guessing involved.

The game is asymmetrical, meaning each side plays differently. This isn't like chess where the only thing differentiating the players are the color of the pieces. Each side can only play cards that are designed for their side. Each side has it's own format, rules, card titles and more. The core concept is that there are cards in the corporate deck called 'Agendas'. These are the corporation's plans. Scoring seven points worth of these will win the game for either side. But the runner has none of them in his deck. Which means the hacker player has to break in or 'make runs' on the corporate player's computers. This leads to a great mix of bluffing, resource management and brinkmanship that I haven't seen the likes of in any other game.

I'll end the description there because quite frankly, it's like an alien asking what Christmas is about and trying to sum it up by saying, "Well, people get together once a year and give each other presents." It just doesn't really give you the flavor at all.

But this isn't just a game review here. This is a post about how much this game has had an effect on my thinking and on my life. I currently administrate the league here in West Seattle. I play twice a week outside of the house and I play my girlfriend as often as she'll indulge me. It's gone from being a game to a hobby.

That's not all though. I wanted to share a few links to other articles that for me, really put into focus why the game has had such a profound impact on me.

First is an article called 'Why Netrunner Matters':  http://killscreendaily.com/articles/why-netrunner-matters/   This great piece dives into this history of hacking, back to Allen Turing and others and explains why hacking is an important cultural touchstone for us.

Second is an article titled, 'Breaking Gender and Racial Barriers in Netrunner'.  http://gamasutra.com/blogs/EricCaoili/20141020/228144/Breaking_gender_and_racial_barriers_in_Netrunner.php  You can guess what this one covers. It's really gratifying to see so few 'average white guys' portrayed in this game.

Third is one called 'The politics of Netrunner'. http://www.popmatters.com/post/179084-the-politics-of-netrunner/  This one nails the intelligent humor and insight that Netrunner slips into the game. It's rare that a game in our modern era can make smart commentary without sounding like it's preaching.

So yeah, it's not just that I love the game. It's that it is a great game. It's smart, well thought out, fun to play, constantly changing and evolving.

If you've read through this and I've piqued your interest, Fantasy Flight put together a very slick video on how to play the game. It's made for folks who have already purchased the 'core set' (which runs about $40). Feel free to take a look though:

The game isn't easy to pick up if you've never played anything beyond Monopoly. Nevertheless, I truly believe that this game elevates the tabletop experience on every level. It's setting a new standard. And I'm having a hell of a lot of fun.