In this review, I’ll be talking about the HeroCard Galaxy board game, by TableStar Games. If you want to know what I thought of the basic HeroCard card game, go read Part 1 of this review.

The HeroCard Galaxy Board Game
Once you know the rules of the card-battle system for HeroCard, learning the rules for the board game is pretty easy. For starters, the board game utilizes the same four phases of play: Discard, Draw, Clear, and Action. The first three phases are identical to the card game, and the Action phase is very similar, but allows you some additional actions. Before I get into that, though, I should probably tell you the point of the game.

Each player takes on the role of one of the heroes, with the goal of trying to take over the galaxy. You do this by accumulating planets of various different colors in the attempt to create a winning ‘hand’ of planets. You can win with one planet of each of the five colors, four planets of the same color, or two planets of one color and three of another; in essense, a straight, a four of a kind, or a full house, respectively. The HeroCard battling system is used for combat resolution, and combat occurs primarily when there’s a planet that more than one person wants.

Now, back to the Action phase. During the action phase you can attack other players, claim unoccupied, uncontrolled planets, draw technology cards, discover new planets, garrison your owned planets, and move around the board and amongst the planets. Attacking, as I’ve said, is handled using the HeroCard system; you declare your intentions to attack a hero or planet, and you play your attack cards as normal. If another hero is present, that hero gets the chance to respond with block cards. If you occupy a planet in Discover Space (four boxes in the middle of the board where unclaimed planets show up), you can claim that planet for your own; the planet has to be empty except for you in order for this action to work, and if it’s not you’ll have to attack. You can draw technology cards as well. When you do so, you draw four and take two, which helps to cut down on random chance, and technologies can really turn the tide of a game. Technologies come in two flavors: actions and planetary defense cards. Actions are used like any other action card, and use up your attribute points. Planetary defenses, on the other hand, are put in garrisons on your planets, and help to defend them (as the name implies). If you’re out in Discover Space, you can discover a planet from the planet queue, moving it to your part of discovery space. If you’re on one of your own planets, you can garrison the planet in order to put cards from your hand under that planet for its defense. This is extremely useful and often used, as otherwise you have to actually be on a planet in order to defend it from someone else’s attack. Finally, you can move once per turn, either throughout discovery space or amongst the claimed planets. These actions, of course, add to the resource management aspect of the game, as some of them (claiming a planet or drawing technology) are Exclusive actions. This means that, if you perform one of these actions, you generally can’t perform the other, or attack, during that turn.

Opinions
As with the basic card game, I like the board game version of HeroCard Galaxy a lot. The strategy is deeper and the gameplay a little less abstract, and it’s generally pretty difficult for a player to get into a position that they just can’t dig themselves out of. I like the addition of technology cards, which are typically low-cost, high-effect cards, and even get put in your own discard pile once they’re used (which gets shuffled and used as your action deck when your action deck runs out). Be warned, though, that the game is long; the box indicates 1-2 hours, but I played a game recently that took three and a half hours to complete. Also be warned that strategy is king in this game. You have to keep your eye on the goal, and think a few steps ahead.

One thing that I was concerned about before playing was the fact that the players could, in theory, simply sit in discovery space claiming free planets until someone won, with little to no interaction. In practice, this simply won’t happen. If you’re playing with people who have any desire whatsoever to win, once somebody looks like they could win soon, the others will try to prevent that. Preventing a quick win is usually pretty easy; as easy as taking away one of the leader’s planets, in fact. I have seen players turtle their planets, fortifying them with garrisoned cards until attacking the planet was simply a bad idea. However, there are technology cards (EMP Disruptor and, to a lesser extent, Orbital Bombardment) that can counter this strategy pretty handily. In fact, it was discovered that two technology cards (EMP Disruptor and Hyperdrive), when used in concert, could pretty much get you any claimed planet in play without a fight, provided nobody else was occupying that planet first.

The heroes each have their own advantages in card play, but these differences become more pronounced in the board game. The Cosmic Cult is still the easiest to play, while the Mechagen’s ability to attack multiple times in a single round can be quite devastating. The Crab’s strength comes in powerful garrisons for owned planets, combined with a strong offense for taking other peoples’ planets awy. The EGG is still the hardest to play, primarily because it’s such a reactionary hero. Most of its attack and block cards are dependent upon the opponent already having some cards in his attribute stacks, which can be either problematic or incredibly powerful, in equal portions. However, the EGG does have the advantage of having the most ‘special effect’ type cards; that is, cards that do things other than simple attack and defense. Some of these cards (like Exhaustion or Energy Drain) can be very useful in combinations.

What I Liked
The components are great; very sturdy and attractive. Not only that, but the quick-reference cards that come with the game are extraordinarily useful and well-designed. As for the game itself, I enjoy the depth of strategy and the constantly shifting landscape that the game provides. I like getting new, shiny things every turn, and the thrill of taking an opponent’s planet by force or, better yet, without firing a shot is great.

What I Didn’t Like
Not much that hasn’t already been mentioned. I’m not sure that the EGG is as useful in the board game as it is in the card game (I’ll have to look further into that). Also, this game takes a fair amount of time to play with more than two people, and that might turn some people off. Finally, the heroes in Galaxy seem a little abstract in terms of what they do. It’s difficult to imagine the battle when terms like ‘Warding Intelligence’, ‘Dimensional Shunt’, or ’4D Weapon’ are the norm; they’re not that descriptive. Some of this, however, is due to the limitations of the genre.

The Bottom Line
You could do a lot worse than HeroCard Galaxy. It’s a fun, deep, involving game that can be played either as a fast-paced straight combat game or as a slower-paced strategic board game, and it’s got a cool sci-fi theme (for those who like space sci-fi). I have no problem recommending this game, and I’m itching to try some of the other games in the HeroCard line.

HeroCard Galaxy, by TableStar Games, is actually two games in one; as such, this review is going to be broken into two distinct parts. Part 1 will cover the basic HeroCard card-battle game, while Part 2 will cover the tactical board game. So, without further ado . . .

The HeroCard Game
The card-battle system present in HeroCard Galaxy is, by all reports, present in all of the HeroCard games. In this game, each player takes control of a hero, and gets that hero’s corresponding action deck. The action deck contains 33 cards, three of which are attributes for your hero, which start in play. There are three different attributes (Body, Mind, and Attribute X), each with a rating (typically between 4 and 9). To launch an attack you play a base attack card along with attack mods and special attacks, while your opponent defends with a base block card, block mods, and special blocks. Each of these cards uses up a certain number of attribute points, and is keyed to a specific attribute. There’s a significant resource management aspect to this game, as the total number of action cards that you have played on a given attribute can’t have a total cost greater than that attribute’s value. So, for example, the Mechagen deck’s Body attribute is Robotics, which has a value of 8. If you were to play the base attack Iron Arm Saw, which has a cost of 2 Body, that would leave you with 6 Body points to play other cards with. The trick comes in with the fact that, once you’ve played through an entire attack/block sequence, those cards stay in play but have no effect on the game other than to use up your attribute points. You can clear up to three cards away from your attribute stacks each turn, before your action phase (which is when you play cards), but it’s conceivable that you’d have to launch an attack or block an attack with some of your attribute points already used up.

A card battle involves the players taking turns going through the four phases: Discard, Draw, Clear, and Action. During Discard you can discard as many cards as you want to from your hand, while Draw allows you to draw up to three cards from your deck, provided you don’t go over the seven-card hand limit. As mentioned before, Clear allows you to clear away up to three cards from your attribute stacks, while Action is where you actually play attacks, blocks, and specials. In addition to having a hand limit and a limit on how many cards you can have in play at a time, you have to worry about what type of action a particular card is. A card could be a Fast (play as many as you want, during anyone’s Action phase), Restricted (as many as you want on your own Action phase), or Exclusive (one per turn, on your Action phase) action. Since most base attacks are Exclusive, this means you can only really launch one attack per turn, with a few exceptions for specific heroes. To win, you earn victory points by successfully attacking an opponent. The first one to the victory point limit wins.

HeroCard Galaxy comes with two heroes. The Cosmic Cult are psychic zealots who spread the word of God, by force if necessary, while the Mechagen are a hive-mind of robots who want to assimilate everything. In addition, there are two expansion heroes you can buy: the Crab is a giant mutant-cyborg crustacean, while the EGG (Energy Garnering Gyrosphere) is a space probe infected with electronic parasites. All four heroes have their own play styles; the Cosmic Cult is probably the most basic and easiest to play, with only a few special rules, while the EGG is probably the most advanced and hardes to play, with lots of special rules that depend on the actions of other players.

Opinions
Now, all this explanations is all well and good, but what do I actually think of the game? I like it, quite a lot. The basic card game is easy to learn and play, but requires a fair amount of strategy to succeed. As I mentioned before, there’s a fair amount of resource management in this game, and it’s very important to manage your resources effectively in order to succeed. When you’re playing a card battle, you really have to weigh the value of attacking during a given turn versus defending. Do you pour all of your resources into a massive assault to earn a victory point, possibly ceding a victory point to your opponent in turn when you don’t have enough attribute points left to block? Do you discard that extra base block card in the hopes of getting something that will help with an attack? Do you attack now, or do you wait until you’ve got more attack mods, and can mount a more effective offense? These are the decisions that the game forces you to make, and they’re often very hard decisions. In my experience, there can be a fair amount of hand-wringing involved, and launching an attack is often a gamble.

It should be noted that the two-player game is significantly different (and shorter) than the three-player game (though I didn’t get a chance to try it with four). A two-player game is straightforward and fast-moving, and is generally over in about a half hour. There’s plenty of strategy, but you only have to adjust your strategy to account for a single player, and you can afford to take more risks with your card plays. In the three player game, though, there’s a lot of opportunistic attacking. What do I mean? Let’s say Player A attacks Player B. Player A has then used up a fair number of his cards and attribute points attacking, while Player B has done the same with his blocking. Player C can the swoop in, attack whoever is the the worst shape, and score a victory point. This often has the effect of one player being the ‘whipping boy’ for a turn or two. To the game’s credit, though, the whipping boy usually recovers after a turn or two, and the role often shifts to someone else afterward.

That said, the game isn’t perfect; there are a few rough edges. For example, there are some typographical errors on some of the cards (colons where there shouldn’t be any, or a card referred to as a ‘Block’ rather than a ‘Base Block’). There are also some cards that are open to different interpretations, and you have to figure out whether the spirit of the rule is different from the letter of the rule. The manual, too, has a few problems; for example, I had a really hard time trying to figure out how many cards are in your hand at the beginning of the game. As it turns out, it’s seven, but you don’t find this out until page 23 of the 27-page manual; you’d think it would be at the beginning, under ‘Setup’. Most of these flaws are easy for me to forgive, though, and don’t really change the fact that I do recommend this game pretty highly. Aside from the typos and occasionally unclear rules, the game’s presentation is quite nice. The cards are sturdy and high-quality, the pieces (which are only used in the board game) are very nice, plastic pieces, the manual is attractive and glossy, and I rather liked the art (though this is very much a matter of taste, and I can see why some people wouldn’t like it).

What I Liked
The game is easy to learn, takes about ten minutes to explain to your friends, and doesn’t take too long to play with two players. However, the game’s got a good depth of strategy, and forces lots of hard decisions, which I like a lot. It’s a great combination of heavy and light that I find very appealing. I also like the space sci-fi theme, and even the sheer geekery of the game. Let’s face it, any game that has a card called ‘Cybernetic Space Crustacean’ has to be good, right?

What I Didn’t Like
The typos and unclear rules are a strike against the game, though not a big one. In addition, the rulebook inexplicably repeats a lot of the rules for the basic card-battle game. Finally, some cards make reference to terms like ‘waste a card’, which make no sense until you look through the glossary at the end of the manual and find their definitions.

The Bottom Line
HeroCard Galaxy’s card-battle system is a well-designed, fun game, and I enjoy it thoroughly every time I play it (even though I usually lose). It’s easy to learn but takes some effort to master, and has a nice, modular component that I find appealing. Finally, if you’re not too fond of the sci-fi theme, there are other HeroCard games available from TableStar: Rise of the Shogun, Cyberspace, and Champions of New Olympia. Each game uses the core HeroCard rules and comes with its own, unique board game component and two heroes.

I’m going to be writing a weekly column on Table Top Review Online from now on. The column is called “5 Things“; in each column, I’ll choose a topic and talk about five things related to that topic. In this one, I chose campaign preparation. Anyway, go ahead and read it. If you have an idea for a future “5 Things” you’d like to read, send me an email (check the sidebar for my email address).

Today, I received my first review copy of a game. TableStar Games sent me a copy of HeroCard: Galaxy, as well as the Crab and EGG expansions. This isn’t intended to be a full review as, to date, I’ve only played the card-battle version of the game once. I’ll give you some initial impressions, though.

When I opened the box, I thought, “Wow, these components are great.” The cards are sturdy and attractive, the box art is nice, the plastic pieces are well done, and the board is well-constructed. Even the manual is nice looking; they really went all out as far as production values go. Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar with HeroCard games, let me explain that HeroCard: Galaxy is both a card game and a board game. The basic game is a card-battle game, where each player takes control of a hero and uses that hero’s deck to attack the other player. However, you can also play it as a board game; in this case, the card-battle mechanic is used to resolve combats within the game. Just tonight, my wife and I played a hand of the card-battle game, and it was a lot of fun. The rules were very easy to explain and follow, the game was fast-paced and fairly strategic, and ultimately the whole thing was a satisfying experience. We used the two core heroes; I played the Machegan (a robotic hive-mind) while she played the Cosmic Cult (psychics who spread the word of God, forcefully if necessary). She won, three to two. Including rules explanation, the whole thing probably took about a half hour.

Now, on a completely related note (and one only tangentially related to anything geeky), my wife and I watched a movie called House of D tonight. House of D was written and directed by David Duchovny, and he even acted in it. I must say, I was impressed. The movie is a very interesting coming of age story, with some very believable and likeable characters. Duchovny appears to be a pretty good writer/director, and I must say that Anton Yelchin (who was the leading actor) really has a career ahead of him. Anyway, I highly recommend House of D.

It should come as no surprise to people who regularly read this blog that I am a fan of the d20 System. I’ve got a number of d20 products on my shelf, and I mostly play d20 (or d20 derivations, like Mutants and Masterminds). That said, one thing that’s always bugged me a little about d20 is the fact that it doesn’t focus much on character backstory. I mean, yes, it gives some general advice about making sure your character has a backstory, and playing that character as a 3-dimensional person. But, in a game where virtually everything is codified and turned into a rule of some sort, why are there no mechanics for creating a compelling backstory? With that in mind, I present you with a system for Backgrounds and Attachments in d20 games.

Background
Your character came from somewhere, right? He didn’t just spring, full-formed, out of his father’s head; various events shaped him, made him who he is. That’s what your background represents. Your background is made up of background elements—up to five of them—that represent significant moments in your character’s past, things that really meant something. Here’s how it works.
First, come up with a few things that happened to your character sometime in the past. These should be important, personality-shaping things, like being trapped in a well for a few days, or killing the wolf that was preying on your parents’ sheep when you were a kid. They can be from the recent past, or they can be from your distant childhood, in any combination. You should probably come up with three to five of these elements, though this isn’t strictly necessary. You could, for example, come up with one truly defining element, or even come up with six or seven of lesser importance.
Once you’ve come up with your character’s background elements, you get 8 ranks to assign to these elements. You’ve got to put at least 1 rank in each element, though you can put more than 1 in a single element.
What does this mean, though? Any time you’re able to justify to the GM that an element of your past could benefit you in a situation, you get to add that element’s ranks as a bonus. If the GM decides (or you do) that some part of your background could be a liability, then those ranks act as a penalty. Pretty simple, huh? Here’s an example.
You’ve got to come up with a background for our man, Japhed. Now, while you were thinking about what kind of character you wanted to play, you decided you wanted to be a sneaky, smooth-talking kind of guy, but not a cold-hearted criminal. A mercenary of sorts, to be sure, but one with a conscience. So, how does that translate into a background? I’ll show you.
First, you decide that Japhed grew up in a big city, and lost his parents when he was pretty young. He lived on the streets for a while, and fell in with a gang of thieves where he learned his craft. One day, he saw some of his buddies beating up on an old man for some valuable trinkets he had, and it turned his stomach. He fought his former friends in order to defend the old man, and was kicked out of the gang because of it. That’s four elements right there. Now, we assign the ranks.
The first element is that Japhed lost his parents young. That’s important, but it happened a long time ago, so you only assign 1 rank. Next, he fell in with those thieves, which helped shape his world view for a while. 2 ranks. When he saw his friends beating up on a helpless old-timer, it really affected him deeply, so you decide that that element gets 3 ranks. Finally, he got kicked out of the gang for fighting his friends; that gets the last 2 ranks.
Later, during play, these background elements will rear their heads from time to time. If something comes up that requires Japhed to be tough and independent, he might get a +1 bonus for having grown up without parents. If he has to jump in to defend an innocent, he’d probably get a +3 bonus for reacting so strongly to an innocent getting pummeled.

Attachments
Attachments are the relationships you build, either with people, places, objects, organizations, or even ideals. You have 20 ranks that you can spend on attachments, but you don’t get to spend them all now. No, you only get to spend 8 ranks while you’re creating your character; other attachments will be formed during play. Attachments, like your background, can go either way. If, say, you have a strong positive attachment to a particular person, defending that person would turn the ranks for that attachment a bonus. If you have to oppose that person for some reason, they might be a penalty, instead. And that brings up another point: you should specify whether the attachment is a negative or a positive, whether you like or dislike the person, place, or whatever. Note that you can’t have more than 5 ranks in a particular attachment.
Another thing about attachments is that you can rearrange the ranks that you assign while you’re actually playing. If, during character creation, you gave someone 3 ranks, and your relationship suffers, you can take a rank away and give it to a different attachment, or even leave that rank unassigned. Attachments are a lot more fluid and dynamic than your background is. You should still consult your GM when you do something like this, but it’s generally permissible to do it whenever you want to.
The easiest way to come up with attachments is to ask yourself the question: what’s important to my character? His family? His religion? The house he was born in? His very own ship? You should also ask what your character hates, if anything; these are attachments to. Once more, an example.
You’ve just come up with Japhed’s background, and now you just have to come up with attachments. You decide that, even though his parents died a long time ago, Japhed’s still got an attachment to their memory; you assign 2 ranks to that. You also figure that he must have kept at least one friend from his days in the gang. You decide that his old mentor, Heartless Burgen, is still a good friend of his, so you give him 2 ranks, too. Now, Japhed’s been living in the city of Talltowers his whole life, and he knows the back alleys like the back of his hand; you give Talltowers 1 rank. But what about that pivotal fight, way back when? What came out of that? Well, it stands to reason that those thieves bear Japhed a fair amount of ill will, and the feeling’s probably mutual. You decide that Corben, the meanest of them, is still a vocal enemy of Japhed’s, and you give him 2 ranks. Finally, that old man was grateful to Japhed for saving him, and Japhed still looks in on him from time to time; Old Henry gets 1 rank, too.
Now, if Japhed were to have to defend Old Henry again, he’d get a +1 bonus. He also gets a +2 bonus in his various dealings with Heartless Burgen, because of their close relationship. Now, if someone were to insult the memory of Japhed’s parents, it could go either way, either a -2 penalty or a +2 bonus. It would depend on the situation.

I should mention at this point that the above draws heavily from what I’ve already planned for Gamecraft 2.0, with the notable exception that Gamecraft 2.0 is not d20, and this stuff is. I just thought I’d mention it, since this is the kind of stuff you can expect from my system.

I just wanted to put in a quick post about some cool things that have happened to me recently.

1. I, and my site, have been mentioned on The Round Table, episode 2-10. Mick had some really nice things to say about me, and I’m very appreciative of that. It’s always nice to know that people appreciate your work.

2. Someone took me up on my review offer. I’ve been in contact with TableStar Games, and they’re going to send me a product to review. Expect to see something about that later on.

3. I might be published sometime in the future. A while ago, I sent a proposal for a card game I’ve been working on to a certain game company (I’m not going to name names yet), and they sent me a response yesterday, requesting a playable prototype. So I’m going to send them one today, and hopefully something will come from that. I’m pretty excited. You can expect to hear more about this sometime in the future, too.

I just downloaded Dogs in the Vineyard a few days ago, and I’ve been reading through it since then. I must say, I’m intrigued. It’s got an interesting premise and some very cool, very simple mechanics for conflict resolution. One big thing that it’s done for me, though, is it’s got me thinking a lot about what I call “The Mechanics Continuum”.

Now, what the krunk do I mean by that? As I see it, the Continuum is a sort of catch-all concept for mechanics design philosophy, with two opposite poles. On one end, you’ve got the rules-heavy systems; these systems are designed by people who really dig game mechanics in general, and believe that a good game should be inherently balanced, and should have rules systems to handle just about every conceivable situation. On the other end, there are the rules-light systems; these systems are designed by people who feel that story is more important than rules, and believe that, while balance might be important, individual GMs and players are completely capable of dealing with game balance and handling situations that fall outside of the normal rules. These are the extremes; most games fall somewhere in the middle. By way of example, Dogs in the Vineyard falls more to the rules-light end of the continuum, while something like the d20 System or Rifts would probably lean more toward the rules-heavy end. For the record: I don’t think that either end is necessarily better than the other. I really like Dogs, and I’m also a big fan of the d20 System. I like the crunchy bits, but I also like the broad strokes of games that leave it up to the GM and the players.

I guess that means that I’m probably right in the middle of the continuum somewhere, and that’s the perspective I’m coming from when I write the rules for Gamecraft 2.0. It’s pretty rules-light in comparison to d20, but it’s a bit crunchier than Dogs. I use a lot of broad strokes and give the players and the GM a lot of freedom (as well as responsibility), but I do try to cover as many situations as I feasibly can within the core system.

This one is great if you\’re stuck for a book to read, though. You answer a series of 12 questions, then the test recommends a book for you. I got Catcher in the Rye, which I read way back in high school and enjoyed immensely. So I guess the test works.

I distinctly remember Monte Cook talking about how Arcana Unearthed was geared toward experienced GMs, and deliberately left certain things vague in order to allow the GMs to fill that stuff in for themselves. I’m a big fan of this methodology, and I am using a similar methodology in Gamecraft 2.0. The difference is that I’m not just trying to empower the GM; I’m also trying to empower the players.

What do I mean by that? In general, I like RPGs and rules systems that give the players a lot of power over the direction that the story takes. I like rules that allow players to affect the story in meaningful ways. I don’t mean to say that the players’ actions aren’t meaningful; I think that they are, perhaps, the most meaningful things that happen in the game. However, I like allowing the players to affect how the world reacts to their presence. I like allowing them to step in and do my job for a couple of minutes, once in a while. Serenity’s Plot Points are a good example of a mechanic that does this.

I’m building Gamecraft 2.0 from the ground up with that in mind. The combat and damage system allows players a lot of control over how damage affects them, provided they can provide justification. And this, really, is another thing I like: I like the players coming up with new ideas, and justifying them to me, trying to get me to allow them. I like it because it encourages more of that behavior, since I usually allow these ideas when I like the justification behind them. And I like it because it encourages roleplaying by giving a tangible reward for a good bit of roleplay.

As I create Gamecraft 2.0, I’m going to write little snippets like that that show you what I’m thinking while I do it. I like sharing my point of view on these types of things, and I also encourage feedback.

I used to have a Downloads section, but it got hosed when I converted to WordPress. So, I’m creating a Downloads section again, or at least a Downloads category. The only thing from the old site that I really, really wanted to put back up was this:

The Gamecraft System

The Gamecraft System is a free, generic, open-source RPG ruleset. Download it and use it if you want, and you won’t owe me a dime. All I ask is that you give me some credit in your product.

I also wanted to say that I’m currently in the process of creating a new version of the system, which I’m (very creatively) calling Gamecraft 2.0. I’m designing it in conjunction with a setting, both of which I plan on getting published commercially when they’re done. I’ll probably be posting stuff about this in the future, FYI.