So the big change everyone's clueless about (but interested in!) is the addition of Factions to the game. Here's what I've been able to figure out so far:

- 7 "Identity" cards identify the factions, 4 corps and 3 runner groups.

- Choosing and using a n identity seems to be mandatory?

- Most (but not all) of the cards we've seen so far have a single faction icon in either the lower left or lower right, in addition to coloration changes and "watermarks" in the text blocks

…and that's about it. Anyone else see anything I missed?

As for expectations, I have to admit that I'm a bit iffy on their addition to the game. Don't get me wrong - I'm not panicking, and I'm certainly not going to throw a fit without actually seeing it. But one of the things I really liked about the original was that there WEREN'T factions or colors. Every corp card you pulled was potentially useful for your corp deck and you didn't have to worry about whether it was Red or Blue or White. It also made for a much bigger pool to assemble from. As someone pointed out, 7 factions means a very small pool of cards to work with when you're building for a given faction. It also means the discovery element of "What am I facing?" goes away a bit. If HB's bioroids means it's the best at doing meat damage, and Weyland's construction capabilities means you know you're facing remote location nodes, that discovery fades.

So, I'm hoping that Identities may change up a few rules without completely defining how you play. What that means exactly remains to be seen - maybe appropriate cards are slightly less expensive or more effective, without being so much so that you're crippled for including off-faction cards.

Also, as a minor side note, what's up with the faction icon being in different places on different cards? That seems a very strange decision for card layout…

Hmm, so…

1. Identities. I wonder if these are sort of like the Stronghold cards in L5R, which in turn are slightly like Warcasters in Warmachine. That is, it's sort of the "leader" of your deck and bestows certain powers or advantages. Later on, releasing more identities would basically add templates for more deck archetypes. Well, if that's what they are…

2. Factions. Everyone keeps saying the original game didn't have any. I don't think that's true at all. It had two factions, Corp and Runner, and you couldn't mix them. They even had different colors, what more evidence do you want? What else we don't know is whether (and how) you can mix factions. Having factions is not the same as saying all decks have only one faction. Call of Cthulhu sort of defaults to 2-faction decks but 1-faction is possible and so are more. There in fact is no limit on how you mix other than being able to pay your resource costs. Maybe Netrunner will allow some sort of mixing as well - we just have to wait and see. They use bits to pay for stuff, so there may be a +1 bit cost for out of faction cards, or you might be limited to no more than X out of faction cards, or whatever. I don't know, they haven't told us yet how it works!

I'm hoping we can mix factions, which would also help solve the predictability issue you mentioned about knowing the faction meaning knowing the playstyle. But we'll see. And I might be wrong on Identities, but if that's not what they are then what's our alternative theory?

Pretty much all my thoughts exactly, db, and good to see you again

Here are a range of possibilities I can see, none of which are really exclusive to each other:

- Different starting resources

- Different bonuses (discounts for certain cards, extra effect from other cards, i.e. Shapers install mods for 1 less, or NBN can run cheaper traces)

- Extra cost for out-of-faction cards

- Hard limit on out-of-faction cards

- Different win conditions

- Special "tricks" (e.g. maybe a certain corp can pay part of the rez cost for an unrevealed piece of ice from turn to turn)

I just hope that it does err on the side of providing some flavor without completely defining the playstyle, whether through hard limits or benefits that are too good to pass up. And I have to say that given that this is the major new addition to the old game, I REALLY wish they wouldn't have teased it with so little information.

Also - while I see your point about the original game being 2 factions, I don't know that I really agree. It may come from my time playing Decipher's SWCCG, but there's not really a choice there. Most everyone I knew expected you to have one of each, and to play both. You really couldn't say "I'm only going to play corp" any more than you could say "I'm only going to play light side" in SWCCG.

IMHO, that's not really a "faction", it's just two separate pools that you MUST build for. Mainly that's because it avoids the problem of wasted cards. Getting an expensive runner card wasn't inherently wasted, any more than getting a corp card was… Not like pulling an expensive Green card if all you play is Red/Blue, or like the slots in Warhammer: Invasion that may go to say a Dwarf card when you play Chaos.

My guess is that Identities work as House card in AGoT. You pick faction (Identity) to focus on. You are able to play off faction cards also but you have to pay extra or something. But I hope Identities would be more complicated. Closer to AGoT Agendas or L5R Stronghold/Sensei.

Surreal said:

It would almost make sense, as they especially have made the runner factions a big deal. I'm not familiar with the Android license, but I can see them having separate agendas, but I really hope it's not a hardline color distribution like Magic, as with only 35 cards of each faction, with 7 identities, it doesn't allow you to build a 45 card deck without going out of faction unless they package 3x of at least some things in the core set.

I think the usual minimum size for their games is 50 cards, that's what CoC uses anyway.

No, I don't think it will be possible that they don't allow faction mixing at all - you wouldn't be able to build a legal sized deck out of the Core set, which is pretty necessary I think.

Free mixing with no restrictions may interfere with the idea of the Identity cards though. So, maybe there will be a limit on out of faction cards or something. An extra cost to play them might also make the Core set less of a good experience out of the box. Maybe some card effects only work on in-faction cards? That's a common approach in minis gaming. Say you have a buff card that adds strength to your ice breaker or something, but it only works on ice breakers that match the faction of your Identity card. So now you can put any foreign ice breakers in your deck that you like, but there's an in-game reason not to do too much of it without actually setting a hard limit of any kind if enough cards specify a faction match. The beauty of it is that the buff card itself doesn't even need a faction, it just requires a match between the ice breaker and the Identity, so there is no need to print several different versions of the buff card.

Well, we'll see. Fantasy Flight loves to publish teasers for their games one little bit at a time, so I'll be pretty surprised if they don't reveal some more info within the next week or two at the longest.

Hi all , we made several years ago Disocouri cards sometimes called agent or VIP cards …

that was the concept of faction cards nothing is new here …

it was some cards modifying the starting ressources ( bits, hands) and gave to players some special ability .

the idea is cool but as it has been said i hope it won't restrict us from a deck building point of view …

so the best way would be :

allow monofaction deck allowing players using his faction

allow multi faction not allowing players to play faction .

that could eb the best way to balance things

Buhallin said:

Good to see you too, people with good taste in games will always find each other again eventually as long as forums exist to talk about them

This is exactly the sort of thing I was envisioning too. Bit discounts or bonuses for certain types of actions/cards, or perhaps a special ability you can activate which is on the Identity card itself. Choosing a main faction wouldn't require a special card by itself, just a verbal declaration would be sufficient. So these cards must serve some other purpose in addition.

Having had time to think about it some more, I like the idea. As the game progresses and new Identity cards come out (representing either famous hackers or corporation leaders or whatever) each new card will open up new ideas for deck design around their abilities. I foresee this making for a richer game than it would be without them, with more variety.

Nor am I worried about Identities pigeonholing deck ideas. With any given deck archetype, there will (eventually) exist multiple Identities that would work well with it. One guy may improve your economy by reducing bit costs so you can run more often or worry less about raising cash. Another guy might come with extra memory, allowing you to ditch those cards from your deck and focus more on the programs you want. Still another could give you a way to pump your icebreaker strength, which might let you get away with cheaper programs. Any of these (and others) would be useful bonuses on top of your deck, and possibly have implications for how you could further tune it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that any one of them would dominate.

I'm liking the way that sounds and agree with you. I'm really looking forward to more teasers from FFG.

dboeren said:

The only thing that worries me on this front is that the cards seem to be tagged to particular factions. I'd be a lot happier with "Walls cost 1 less to Rez" than I will be with something that limits your card selection due to faction. The cards being identified with a particular faction seems to lean more towards the latter, or at the very least limits the flexibility.

I'm willing to wait and see what it is, but none of FFG's other card games have ever impressed me. Warhammer was an unholy mess of clueless rules and designers that decided consistency was a bad thing, Call of Cthulhu did absolutely nothing to evoke the setting for me, and AGOT seemed solid but was just too huge by the time I tried to get into it. I'm just worried that the faction mechanic is something they're shoehorning in just because you're supposed to have it, or they'll try and use the limitations as a balancing mechanic for overpowered abilities (because that always works so well).

I can appreciate them feeling like they needed to add something, to do more than just recreate Netrunner… I'm just not sure this was the right choice. I'd say that I hope they reveal more about it soon, but if FFG's other "Coming Soon" games are any indication we'll be lucky to see another article this year

Identities are answered here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=207&esem=1

The Core Set for Android: Netrunner introduces seven identity cards, which represent different corporations and runner classes. Each plays according to its own, distinctive style.

So I would say same as House cards in AGoT.

It doesn't really tell us how that effects game play though and I think that is really what everyone is wondering.

Ok, then, let's speculbate…

The Corporations

Haas-Bioroid [synthetic labor, artificial intelligence] (Adonis Campaign)

I would imagine it has particularly clever ICE (focus on Sentries) and agendas which feed back into its own protection.

Jinteki [cloning, genetics, biotech] (Neural Katana, Precognition)

Cloning and biotech. We've already seen Caprice Nisei delve into R&D, so I'd expect a lot of deck/hand management abilities and real-world effects (brain damage seems like a great fit for Jinteki ICE, in particular).

NBN [media, publishing, network security] (Breaking News)

I'd expect NBN to be heavy into tag-and-bag and controlling the Runner's access to resources (zapping bank accounts in particular). The archetype of the evil media conglomerate controlling the perceptions of reality is well-known. NBN probably has little to no worries about Bad Publicity, I bet.

Weyland [construction, civil/mechanical engineering] (Posted Bounty, Scorched Earth, Hadrian's Wall)

Being more of an externally-focused industry, I think Weyland might have a more traditional approach to corporate security. No need to spend money on being clever when you can just be brutal and too big to fail. Focus on Barrier ICE with high strength values, and ALL THE MEAT DAMAGE, for sure.

The Runners

Anarchs (Ninja, Decoy)

Seems like a faction full of hack-by-seat-of-your-pants dirty tricksters. Lots of one-shot abilities and disposable resources (and ways to recover them, I'm thinking). Also probably live "off-the-grid" and may have an easier time avoiding traces and tags. Programs are cheap and often have exploitable weaknesses, but when employed at the right time perform admirably.

Criminals (Corroder, Cyberfeeder)

Professional information thieves have better access to funds (credit-earning resources and events), and know that investing in good equipment means never having to doubt yourself in the heat of the moment. Emphasis on top-of-the-line equipment and more-expensive icebreakers that are built to last, but also the means to afford such.

Shapers (Tinkering, Modded)

"Because it's there" is the motto of the shaper. It's not so much that a run is possible, but that a run can always be made more efficient. The two cards we've seen are both Events (Preps in the old terminology), which enable shortcuts and swiss-army-knife abilities. I'd expect ICE that is affordable but also flexible in how it can be used. A shaper would rather write his own tool for the job than rely on someone else's intellect to carry the day.

Those sound like pretty good guesses based on the cards we've seen - even though it's a small sample so far. As FFG reveals more we can keep updating our concept of what each faction is like. Plus, I still think there will be more Identity cards in the future so that eventually every faction will have a selection of Identities you can play. For the Runner, they would obviously be actual named Runners. For the Corps, possibly different CEO's and other officers of the company, something like that - or maybe subsidiary corporations, etc…

As soon as we've got the sets in hand, we've got to set up a tournament at Secrets Factory and see if we can get some semi-regular play going. I understand most people there will prefer playing a variety of games, but maybe once a month or something…

Identities could also be your player personality. That FFG site already mentions some famous Runners. Identity could determine your faction and also offer some small benefits depending on what personality you play. There could be card like Gabriel Santiago - Criminal. So it would like L5R strongholds but maybe with more minor effect. I hope this would be the way they do identities.

But also have to keep in mind that cards which start in play are hardest to balance because you have to think every possible Identity when designing a new card.

dboeren said:

That reminds me…I wonder if Upgrade (SysOp) cards will be available? The mythical "white hat hackers".

I don't see why not, they were a significant card type in the old game.

Here's a list, looks like there were 16 different Upgrade/Sysop cards back in the day: http://www.netrunneronline.com/search/?q=sysop&Find.x=0&Find.y=0

The Return of Dr. Dreff!

Buhallin said:

I like the idea of factions, partly because I like when a card set has some obvious deck directions for me to try out, but this is a concerning point.

I think it would be a very Netrunner-esque solution if the identity cards were hidden at the start of the game, to be revealed when necessary (e.g., before playing a card restricted to that faction.) It would make sense that the Corp wouldn't know what kind of Runner they're facing at the start….it's stranger for the runner not to know who they're attacking, but there have been plenty of stories that started with someone stumbling upon a heavily-secured secret without knowing the ultimate owner, so I don't think it would be too out-of-theme for the runner's first hint that they've crossed Haas-Bioroid to be the polite knock of the robot hitmen (or whatever).

They may be, and if not, it sounds like a very simple alternate format.

Reminds me of the "hidden powers" variant of Cosmic Encounter, where you keep your special abilities hidden until the first time you need/want to use them. So in theory, whatever benefits your Identity would give you are deliberately ignored until you wish to reveal.

Unless there's something inherently game-breaking about these benefits being sprung upon the opponent without any chance for preparation…

dboeren said:

I live in Atlanta too, and my gamer group is interested in playing a lot of NetRunner on release as well. See you at the Secrets Factory soon.

Big Head Zach said:

I wouldn't expect there to be a problem with it - the whole rest of your deck is secret until the cards are actually played, so it doesn't seem that likely that the Identity card being secret would cause a problem as long as the benefits of the cards aren't enormous. I'm just expecting minor perks from them, perhaps one Runner adds a free +1 strength when breaking Sentry ice, or another one can install Viruses for one less bit, things on that level of magnitude.

@Flamejuggler - we'll definitely be in touch on setting up some game days between our groups. After the launch (probably at Gencon) we'll start figuring out some demo days to get new players interested and see who wants to join in and who might be interested in a tournament, etc… Eventually I'd like to have a regular game night at least every other week or so and a stable group of players attending.