Some multiplayer variant in the future (under the assumption that the "core" rules are strictly 1v1 as the box suggests) would be welcomed by me. As Richard Garfield said in his interview, playing against some global deck didn't quite cut it, but alteast a multiplayer variant would be a nice addition. I know I'm getting well ahead of myself here! I read in another thread that house rules were made for a multiplayer variant, but nicely polished, published rules would be great. I can dream right?

With this in mind, did anyone devise a system for additional players that seemed to work well in the original Netrunner?

And I do mean by multiplayer as more than 2 people

I remember trying a variant in which corp and runner joined forces against another pair of corp and runner. The pair that collected enough combined agenda points won the game. It did not really work as multiplayer because each player would have effectively only one opponent and interaction with your partner was non-existent.

2 Corp players and 2 Runners? That way, everybody has 2 opponents. Not sure on the details, haven't seen the rules yet after all.

I'm kind of a fan of the "Big Sell-Out." ( http://www.darkpact.de/netrunner/variants/theBigSellOut.html ) I'm wondering why that wouldn't work.

As someone whose played The Big Sellout a number of times, I can attest to the fact that while it was fun, it was also deeply flawed. Great for a relaxed boardgame night where you want to get everyone playing and it actually functions as a pretty decent way to teach the game to new players.

AussieKSU said:

I remember playing everyone sitting in a circle, corp deck to the right, runner to the left, and simply running left. Combined score.

Main flaw is that only two people are acting at any one time, so there is a lot of downtime for the other players. That means its best to have something else happening which also has a lot of downtime (and players who are capable of mentally switching easily).

IIRC we were playing a lot of Jyhad (V-TES) at the same time, so the Netrunner games were a subgroup of the bigger Jyhad games.

Corbon said:

Now there's another game I'd kill to have redone as a LCG. Loved V-TES.

DavidAnnable said:

the day it arrives then the most two briliant game will be resurect

Mikko Leho said:

Haven't seen any reason why The Big Sell-Out would not work any better / worse for A:NR than for Original NR. It does need more than four people to make it work well, otherwise you may as well play two "normal" games and combine match scores as a "team" play.

For a decent, rambling game that keeps a mob of players of Netrunner in a store amused all night, the variant works well, and I know some environments that preferred it to the original game.

Messenger said:

Uh, rules like this DO exist for The Big Sell-Out multiplayer variant. I don't know why people are saying there's no team interaction.

Under BSO rules, the Corp can spend an action/click to transfer any number of bits/credits to the Runner at a 1:2 ratio; the Runner can do the same but transfers at a punishing 3:1 ratio. The Runner resides on a central server (Human Resources) that the Corp protects with Ice, and opposing runners can run HR like they can HQ, Archives, or R&D; getting in allows them to tag the Runner, or pay the cost of one of their Programs to steal it. Runners can also temporarily rez Ice protecting HR by spending their own bits/credits. A runner who steals an Agenda can choose to give it to his Corp partner who immediately installs it in a data fort/server and can advance and score it as normal to benefit from its game text, which should be actually interesting in ANR since different factions have exclusive access to different agendas. And you play to 11 points, not "whoever gets the most".

I posted a simplified version of the variant for boardgaming.com 's house rules section, where I changed money transfers to be 1:1 and only from corp to runner (the runner's money supply ultimately dictates what is or isn't going to happen while the corp's dictates how much the runner must spend to get what she wants, so transferring to the runner shouldn't be so super-efficient, and a 3:1 runner-> corp ratio is so punishing it may as well not be there), changed the benefit of successfully running HR from "pay a program's cost to steal it" to "pay a non-unique program or hardware's cost to trash it" since steal effects are way, way too cost-effective, made the optional "un-flatline a Runner" ability not optional and adjusted the cost to be in line with ANR's "forfeit an agenda" instead of "spend some agenda points", and cut some other minor stuff that I thought didn't add enough to justify the extra complexity introduced, but those are just tweaks, and all the team interaction is already there. The only thing I might add is one more direct way for the Runner to help the Corp other than "run Human Resources to stop the Runner messing with you", probably something that interacts with Archives, but I'm not sure what it'd be.

Obviously, it isn't totally perfect -- some of the stuff you'd want a multiplayer variant to do, would have to come in the form of cards that interact with multiplayer instead of additions to the rules -- but I think it's more interactive than people give credit for.

Huitzil37 said:

Do I hear "The Big Sell-Out as a deluxe expansion" here? That'd be pretty awesome, actually.

My friends and I played using the Big Sell Out rules for years with the original Netrunner, we can't wait to try them out with Android.

We used slightly modified versions as well along the lines of what Huitzil37 suggested. Trashing runner cards on a successful run. Varying bit exchanges rates (we tweaked those a lot not sure what we decided on.)

As for interaction it really felt like there was a decent amount of interaction as you and you runner / corp coordinated plans, protecting your runner giving them bits for run etc was all part of the fun / strategy.

And I also would love to see an officially supported expansion using these rules.

http://anr.phtn.de/formats/ANR_BigSellOut.pdf

This is a simplified, improved and tested variant of the aforementioned Big Sell Out.
Me and some friends already had some playing experience with the Big Sell Out, and after modifying some rules, we recently tested and discussed it again (with the original Netrunner).
Further playtest with Android:Netrunner is necessary.
If you played this variant with four (or six or eight…) players, please post any comments and suggestions in this thread.

SeeYa, Frizzler

If V:tES became an LCG, I'd buy into it for true. Unfortunately white-wolf pulled the support. I've kept five playable decks in case friends wanna come around and feel nostalgic.

As for a multi-player format (2v2) for Netrunner, a friend and I wanna start developing rules for Corperate Sponsored Runner. The Corp. gets an option to to use a click/action to move money down to the runner, the runner, when scoring an Agenda allows the corp to "activate" the effect and gain the benefit it provides. I think this idea could work. Just gotta work out "how much" can the Corp back their runner with 1 click. Perhaps the runner, after scoring an agenda can spend a click to send the file to corp so that they can access the benefit?

I just read the Big Sell Out variant and with some slight tweaking and play-testing, I think it's very playable and would prove to be a lot of fun.

Has anyone tried rules pertaining to a lopsided versus match? 1 corporation vs 2 runner groups would be an intriguing prospect. Modify corp actions to ensure they can keep up in the arms race but allow the versatility of the runners to give them an advantage. Make those games where you have an odd number of players a bit more fun.