Ok hope this is the correct place for this but for awhile i have wondered about the card game. Ive heard many good things about the game from different websites and with Obsidian launching the video game of this, im itching to get in.
BUT i am in the position to where i dont have many funds to throw down alot for many different things. So im asking as someone who has enjoyed many different types of video games, board games, and recently the past couple years tabletop gaming, i have 2 questions.
Question 1- how would u describe the "playing" of the game? Like what does it resemble as? Examples of games that are similiar in mechanics and whatnot because i am totally in the dark about what the gameplay is actually like.
Question 2- what would i need to get started? Im planning on playing with my kids and try to get my gaming group in on it. Group would be 3 to 4 people and thats basically how many of my kids that would be playing with me. I have run RotRL campaign tabletop and was thinking on doing S&S at the beginning of next year but i usually modify the story of my games so i didnt know if that would cause an issue or not. And since i dont have the funds to blow on EVERYTHING, I wanted to know what exactly i would need to run with said groupsnof people.
Tyvm for ur replys and sorry if im not exactly clear, like i said im pretty in the dark about the details and im asking here for some light on the subject.
1. For me, it doesn't play like any other game I've played. But that could be just due to the games I've played. What I love about it is that it feels so much like playing a role playing game, which I used to have the time to do. This lets me feel that without anywhere near the time commitment. The people I've played with that play(ed) RPGs feel the same way. But I also play with people (including my wife) who never played an RPG before and they like it to. They enjoy growing their character, working together, and figuring out the challenge of each scenario.
2. If you are going to get started with a group of friend, and there will be 4 or less players, you just need one of the base sets, either RotR or S&S. If you like it, you can then purchase the 5 additional adventure decks to continue the adventure path (and the character add-on deck to let 5 or 6 players play or to just give you some more character options). The card game will give away the names of villains and locations, but I've seen people say it doesn't actually give away what you need to do in the RPG.
If you decide to go with Rise of the Runelords, be aware there are two printings of it. The first printing is from China and has slightly taller cards. The second printing is from the US and has cards .5mm shorter than the first printing. The US printing also includes some of the errata made to the cards. On the back (or bottom of the base set) you will see either "Printed in China." or "Second Prining. Printed in the USA." I'd advise you to get the second printing. Paizo is definitely selling all second printings from their web store, but some retailers may still have some first printing stock.
Lastly, the easiest way to try the game might be to find some place near you that is doing organized play. Ask if you can try the demo scenario. You won't need to buy anything if someone can run the demo scenario for you.
I hope that helps.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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1. I'm not aware of any very close equivalent games. It's sort of like a card version of Talisman or Runebound, but with campaign rules and coop. The way a scenario goes is that you have a number of locations, which are small decks of cards consisting of traps, monsters, and treasure. Generally the scenario involves your characters individually traveling to these locations to search them for "boss" type encounters and eventually defeating a final villain. To do so each character has a deck of cards with weapons, spells, and so forth in them, as well as innate special abilities and different strengths/weaknesses. The treasure you find during each scenario can be used to upgrade your characters for the next one. The default style of play is to play through a campaign, which consists of 33-35 scenarios linked by a common plotline.
2. There are three options to get started. You could buy a base set, of which there are two, Rise of the Runelords is one, Skull and Shackles is the other. Runelords has a more generic fantasy theme while Shackles is pirate themed. The base sets include 8 or 10 scenarios and seven characters to choose from. You can also get a character add-on deck that adds 4 more characters and expands the maximum players from 4 to 6.
Your other option is organized play, which has a lower entry cost in that you only need to buy a class deck, but that only works if you have the time/means to go play at a venue that already has the base set.
Each campaign has adventure decks which include more, higher level stuff and five more scenarios. If you want an entire campaign you're eventually looking at a base set and five adventure decks, plus the optional character add-on.
I hope this answers most of your questions. The game is very fun.
Yes, this is the right place to ask about the card game. Welcome!
As far as your first question, the easiest way for me to describe how the game plays is that its like a mix between deck building games like Thunderstone and adventure board games like Runebound or Talisman. If you're familiar with those two types of games, I think you'll be able to get a pretty good idea about what the game is like.
The similarities to Thunderstone and other deck building games is pretty subtle. Although you do collect new cards throughout the game, the deck management system is more static. Instead of reshuffling your deck after it runs out and you need to draw more cards, running out of cards means your character is dead. You also start off with a fully fleshed out deck (albeit a pretty basic one) as compared to having construct the deck significantly as you play. Oh, and speaking of shuffling, you will be shuffling a lot so I hope that's not a problem. The set-up time is also pretty similar to a game like Thunderstone as you build locations and your initial characters.
The similarities to adventure board games comes from how your character cards/sheets work. As you play scenarios, you upgrade your skills and abilities to become a stronger character. The big difference here is that instead of making these upgrades as you play one big game, you instead "level up" in between scenarios. In this way, the progression of the game is actually more like dungeon crawl games like Decent which take place over multiple scenarios, but the actual game play is so different from the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game that I didn't want to mention it earlier. It is also similar to adventure board games in how you roll dice to reach target numbers as a way to beat monsters and other obstacles.
Finally, it should be noted that the game is fully cooperative. It does its best to play like an RPG in card game form and it does a pretty good job at it.
To get started, you will need a base set. I would personally recommend Skull & Shackles as this set just started a few months ago and you can follow along as new Adventure Decks are released. Also, with the lessons learned from Runelords, S&S has a few more refined rules right out of the box. Also, although just the base set is enough to play up to four characters, you may still want to consider the Character Add-On Deck just in case you end up with a larger group and also to have a bit more character variety available. You would also want to look into the free Character Sheet PDFs. You can try out many of the characters with little trouble even without the decks they come with, although they are best when they have the proper support (for example, the witch and druid characters aren't as great without all of the animal allies that come with the Character Add-On Deck and the alchemist won't have as many good item options early on without that deck).
Hope you find this helpful. Let me know if there are any other questions you may have.
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First of all, this is (obviously) a cooperative deck building game. But where most deck building games you are simply building your deck as you go and then at the end you put the cards away, this one is continuous.
So it is more of an RPG meets a deck building game. There are a lot of elements and themes coming from the Pathfinder Role Playing game. The first set, Rise of the Runelords (RotR) is the first adventure path that Paizo put out for Pathfinder. There were six chapters of the adventure path and the card game has six adventure decks that correspond to that. Skull & Shackles (S&S) is another adventure path that is used as the theme for the current set. Each chapter/adventure deck has 5 scenarios (usually).
Each player chooses a character/class like fighter or cleric or ranger, etc. Each character has your basic attributes like strength and dexterity and intelligence just like in RPG. Also there are skills based on those attributes like Strength: Melee and Dexterity: Ranged and Intelligence: Arcane. These are bonuses for the checks needed for acquiring and defeating things in the game. The continuous part is that you are updating and adding new skills and feats to your character after completing each scenario (as a reward).
The deck you are building is comprised of cards called boons. They are weapons, spells, armor, items, allies and blessings. Slightly divergent from the RPG but it works. Not every character can have each type of card in their deck. Fighters don't usually have spells and Wizards don't usually have blessings. But everyone starts with 15 cards and each character has a recipe list of the card type they can have and the quantity. Your deck is your life. Your hit points. As you discard or use cards from your deck, you're slowly whittling away your hit points. There are ways to heal back, though. (Just like in the RPG.) Also, as you finish scenarios, you're upgrading your deck cards based on things you pick up during the scenario. You might get a Long Sword +1 to replace that itty bitty Dagger you had. And so on.
So that's mostly background. The object of the scenario (usually) is to corner the villain at a location and defeat him. Simple, right? Well, there are usually # of Players + 2 locations for each scenario. The scenario card tells you which locations those are. The villain has some henchmen to tag along and he and his henchmen get hidden amongst the locations. There are conditions by which you can close the locations and ways to corner the villain but that is in the details of the game. You and your party are fighting monsters, overcoming barriers, picking up weapons and armor, gaining allies and visiting exotic locations.
There is a counter for the game. Does not matter if there is one player or 6 players, there is a counter of 30 blessings or turns (or days if some people want to translate it that way). So if there is one person, they get 30 turns. If six, they each get 5 turns. (There are different situations and conditions where the counter gets advanced ... again, details.) And if you don't complete the scenario's goal in that time, you lose.
And sadly, if during the course of the scenario you run out of cards, you die. So try not to do that.
There are dice. Lots of dice as you go along. When you acquire boons, there are checks against strength/melee for a sword or intelligence/arcane for a spell or charisma/diplomacy for an ally. And there are combat checks to defeat monsters (or other types of checks) where you can use spells or weapons. The mechanics are in the details ... just giving you the generic view. So as your character gets better at stuff and better cards, you add bonuses to these checks for your roll.
That kinda answer's #1
First off tyvm everyone for posting, yal have got my excitment going and basically sold it for me. Ill start off with RotRL because its generic fantasy and seems more able to intice the group of people im gonna be playing with.
one last question, when yal say the additional character deck, are yal talking about the individual decks for each class or the decks that have the iconics in them to have more players?
The product name can be a bit confusing.
This is the RotR Character Add-on Deck. It lets you have 4 more character choices, plus enough cards to have 5 or 6 players at a time (the Base Set is limited to 4 players maximum).
This is a class deck. The Bard Class Deck to be specific. It lest you do Organzied Play, and also gives you 4 more bards to use outside of organized play in any adventure path, as well as some boons you might want to add to any adventure path.
If you aren't going to have 5-6 players (at a time) right away, start with just the RotR Base Set. If you are going to have 5-6 players, you'll need the RotR Character Add-on Deck too. It is also great because those four characters are great additions even if you don't have 5 or 6 players. (There are some unique boons in there too.)
After that, you can purchase each adventure deck for RotR. Remember adventure deck 1 comes inside the Base Set, so you'll be purchasing decks 2-6.
Enjoy your adventure!
Chief Technical Officer
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You might want to check out some of the videos on this YouTube playlist, many of which walk you through a full game session.
If you are starting with RotR, this guide might also be helpful.
I'm working on a version for Skull and Shackles, but it isn't quite finished yet.