Friday, May 30, 2008

FIGHT KLUB FRIDAY - CLAN NAMES & RULES OVERVIEW


The Founding Mentors are soon going to vote on the Final Clan names. The names will be chosen from a list that will end up looking a lot like this one:

Anarchy With Honor
Anointed
Archangels
Avarice
B.B.S. (Broken Bone Society)
Bareknuckle Kings
Black widow
Blitzkrieg
Brotherhood
C.F.C. (Central Fighting Council)
Cabal
Children of Liberty
Council
CTRL-ALT-DEL
Dark lotus
Disciples
Evolution
Evolved
Faceless
Fallen Angels
Forge
Forgotten
Forty Thieves
Fury
Genesis
Gunslingers
Hammers of Asgard
Harbingers of Dread
House of Thunder
Illuminati
Immortals
Inner Circle
Kallisti
Kaos
Krew
Legend
Legion
Legion of Fear
Lotus
Machiavellians
mad hatters
Malakim
Mistaken
Order
Outriders
Phoenix
Ronins
S.O.S. (Society of Shadows)
Saints
Schroedinger’s Cats
Spartans
Steampunks
Swords and Scales
Syndicate
T.F.K. (Thirst For Knowledge)
Vengeance
Vengeance Inc.
Wild Cards
Wolf Pack

Sometime soon the Founding Mentors will be voting to bring this down to the Final 13 Clan Names. From those names I prefer - Gunslingers, Wild Cards, Illuminati and Spartans. Of my 11 suggestions for names, 3 are on this list - Legion of Fear, Harbingers of Dread, and Anarchy with Honor - and I don't think I'd pick one of those for my own Clan name...

Today's official gameplay preview is nothing Earth-Shattering like some card images or a release date, but it is the best look at the rules to date. Combing through all of Tim Ellington's Friday columns provides a very good picture of the game rules and feel. I like it. A lot.

Here is Tim's big post today:

"We’ve talked about some of the cards, functions and design goals of Fight Klub, but how exactly does the game work? What are the components of the game, and how does it all come together?

In a nutshell, here’s how it plays out.

There are 6 types of cards in Fight Klub:

1) Character (Starts in play. Hero or Villain. Provides Energy and game functions)
2) Condition (Plays on table and provides game functions.)
3) Effect (Plays from hand to provide numeric boosts to skirmishes. Some provide game functions.)
4) Fight card (Plays on table. Most have three skirmishes that match up with opponent’s Fight card.)
5) Gear (Plays on table, can provide numeric boosts as well as game functions.)
6) Instants (Plays from hand and provides game functions.)

A deck consists of 40 cards:

1 Hero or Villain
12 Fight cards in a Fight stack
27 cards in your Draw deck.

You build your deck around your character and the Energy they generate (one or more of the three “colors” of Energy). You choose Fight cards that work in combination with Effects and other cards to win skirmishes and score damage against your opponent’s life. Your Draw deck consists of cards that help you create a synergistic balance between executing your gameplan and disrupting your opponent’s strategy.

A typical character may have 8 Life, 5 Hand and 1 Hold. It takes 8 damage to knock you out of the game, and you get to start each turn with 5 cards in hand and can keep (Hold) 1 card at the end of each turn before you Even up (Discard down to your Hold number, then Draw up to your Hand number).

At the start of the game (and at the start of each turn), your character generates Energy, marked by colored tokens. This Energy pool is used as a bank of resources to pay the cost of playing cards from your 27-card Draw deck. Fight cards, which are drawn from a separate Fight stack, have no cost to play.

A turn has three Phases: Setup, Fight and Cooldown.

The Setup Phase starts with each player getting their Energy allocation, and then each player gets two Setup actions. A Setup action can be used to play a Condition or Gear to the table, play an Instant card with the Setup keyword, or execute a Setup gameplay function from a card in play.The player with The Drop determines which player takes BOTH their Setup actions first. Then the other player plays their Setup actions. Then each player turns over three Fight cards, creating three random “fights.”

The Fight Phase begins when the player with The Drop decides which fight to resolve first. Once the fight is chosen, each player gets one Enhance action. An Enhance action can be used to play an Effect card on a player’s current Fight card, play an Instant card with the Enhance keyword, or execute an Enhance gameplay function from a card in play. The player with The Drop determines which player takes their Enhance action first.
The fight is then resolved by determining who wins the most skirmishes on the Fight card, or who has the winning condition if the fight is being resolved with Clash gametext. After the fight is resolved, and any rewards or bonuses are awarded, each player gets one Score action. The player with The Drop determines which player takes their Score action first. The player with The Drop then chooses the next fight, and the steps are repeated until all three fights are resolved.

After the final fight of the turn, there is a Cooldown Phase. Each player gets one Cooldown action. A Cooldown action can be used to play an Instant card with the Cooldown keyword, or execute a Cooldown gameplay function from a card in play. The player with The Drop determines which player takes their Cooldown action first.

Both players then Even up by discarding to their Hold number, and then drawing to their Hand number. The Drop is exchanged, signalling the end of the turn, and the next turn begins, with the player with The Drop determining action priority.

As you can see, the game is not mechanically complex, but the variations you can create with your choices of Fight cards and Effects, as well as the way you can manipulate the table with your other cards creates a play environment thats fast, fun and has tons of in-game decisions to keep you on your toes. :-)

So, an example might be:

A fight card with skirmish numbers of 3-4-5.

Your character provides a bonus for the center skirmish of, say 2. You play an Effect that gives you a 2-0-1 boost, and now your skirmish totals are 5-6-6. What can your opponent muster? Let’s say you win the center and right skirmishes, so you score the Fight card. The right skirmish had a reward tab of Add 1 Yellow Energy. So you get to score 1 damage to your opponent and Add 1 Yellow Energy for winning the reward tab.

But your opponent plays an Instant for his Score action, which awards him 2 of any energy if he loses the previous fight. Now he has 5 Yellow Energy tokens, to your 3, and the next Fight card has clash text which scores the fight for the player with the most Yellow Energy! But for your Enhance action in that fight you activate an Enhance function on one of your Conditions that forces your opponent to Burn 2 Energy… now what options does your opponent have? :-)

He can’t change the outcome, so you managed to tie that Fight card. This “raises the stakes” and the two tied cards are set aside, waiting for the outcome of the next fight, the final one of the turn. Which, because you had The Drop, you waited to do last because…."


That is your Fight Klub news of the week.

Remember, when you think Fight Klub, think Spike.



© 2008 W. Peter Miller

Fight Klub and all related images are trademarks of Decipher, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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