So, this will be the first LCG I will be investing in, and I'm loving what's been presented so far for material. As I wait for the core sets to make it to retail shops, I gotta wonder what to expect from the future.

Looking through the material for other LCGs, it looks like there's Deluxe expansions and Basic packs. The Deluxe Expansions run about $30, the Basic Packs run $10 - $15. So, for those that have been playing other titles, what can we expect?

Also, what do we want to see in the expansions? New mechanics, variations on what we've seen?

So far, there's been no official comment regarding expansions for Android: Netrunner.

Considering it's a re-imagining of the Netrunner CCG, I think it's most likely that at least the first expansion will feature plenty of updated 'reprints'.

To get an overview of the CCG cards check out www.netrunneronline.com/set/limited/cards/ and www.netrunneronline.com/set/proteus/ .

First priority should be to improve the deck-building by providing variety for all of the basic 'functions' in the game (Agendas, Icebreakers, Cred-Generation, etc.). Introducing 'new' mechanics (or factions) can wait.

My wish is that they only release big-box expansions. Chapter packs seem very annoying and expensive, in the long run. With the bigger boxes every player is bound to find something of their liking in each of them.

Other than that I hope that the NRA team takes a serious look at the fan expansions that has been created over the years. There's bound to be some interesting stuff in those, considering how much time & love was put into them.

No new mechanics should be introduced. The way cards function now and how the rules work create a solid game. When games start doing this they get away from themselves and can change completely from the original play. I only expect new cards and maybe factions that expand upon the game. Nothing crazy.

Dez1013 said:

Then I guess you never bought an expansion for a FFG game before.

pastah_rhymez said:

I doubt FFG will intentionally look for ideas from fan supplements. Copyrights are a slippery slope even if authors in question might co-operate for the most part. A lot of television writers do not read fan forums/fiction to avoid being influenced by them. No matter how good this material is, the bottom line is that corporations dare not to use it without explicit permission.

Besides you can only take their card designs from their cold dead hands for NRA

Mikko Leho said:

But for games it's different. As long as you don't use any art or any of the wordings you can take whatever you want. Look at what David Sirlin did with his game Flash Duel (taking Knizias design from En Garde). FFG is a nice company because they say "hey, we're gonna steal yo ****, mmmmkay?" before they do it. They don't *have* to do that, but it's what they do. Taking this into consideration I would say that the NRA team can safely peek at the fan expansions

pastah_rhymez said:

I can see chapter packs being good if they function on the model I've been looking at in the other LCGs; Specific theme and focus for the bulk of the cards offered, combined with a small boost in cards for all factions. ( NOTE : those with more experience with LCGs… please correct me if I am wrong) Buy the packs if they work for your strategy, or pass them over if you want to focus resources elsewhere. Hell, I kind of like the idea of the chapter packs because it might allow me to do some card trading of unneeded cards with others without having to constantly worry about the random aspect dictating when I might get another copy of that card again.

Still deciding on new cards… haven't had a chance to read over all the info on what's in the core set.

pastah_rhymez said:

It is funny that you mention Flash Duel. Reiner Knizia is not happy with Flash Duel:

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Christian Petersen of FFG was not thrilled when it was not an official license:

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Of course you can do this kind of copying legally and to some extend morally, but I do not think FFG wants fan forums to light up with messages like: "FFG stole my card design!!!". If you could somehow license those card designs, then I could see some headway but else I think the design team will steer clear away from them.

They recently switched Call of Cthulu to a new distribution model, getting rid of the monthly packs and instead doing an expansion box every four months, so it's a possibility. I do expect them to go with the "traditional" monthly pack / occasional expansion box model that they are using for Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, and I think it'll work well for this game.

In other games, the monthly packs come in sets of 6, so I expect it'll be the same for Netrunner. In Game of Thrones, each set focuses on a specific theme or mechanic, sometimes introducing new mechanics, and each monthly pack contains cards for every faction. Again, this I expect to work very similarly in Netrunner. Game of Thrones had 6 box expansions, each with a focus on one of the factions. This I'm not sure about -- they might do something similar for Netrunner (netting us at least 7 expansion boxes), but I wouldn't be surprised at all if the expansion boxes worked differently for Netrunner. Maybe looking at what Call of Cthulu did would be more telling, because I think Netrunner is more similar to that than to Game of Thrones, probably.

Mikko Leho said:

Why did you bring up this old shitstorm? Didn't you see how I elegantly danced around it? Bad publicity token for you

Personally I'm hoping for monthly 'data packs.'. I need to be able to modify my agenda selection soonest.

I'm a bit disappointed FFG didn't reintroduced Hidden resources. They allowed the runner to bluff and it was a great addition in the old card game.

I hope they'll add it in an expansion (probably in a deluxe box)

IIRC, the Resource-Hidden Keyword was only introduced in expansions Proteus and Classic. Hidden resources are a fairly large change to Runner dynamics, so it would seem prudent to repeat history and save this feature for a big box.

What I would like to see is further exploration into Bad Publicity. Given the huge change this mechanic has undergone it seems a little underrepresented. A lot of Runner cards revolved around Bad Publicity, tieing in with anti-Black Ops, so I'm interested as to how this will be adapted.

Yeah, hidden "Bluffing" cards for the Runner will likely be reserved for the first deluxe expansion. I forget how they all worked in the original run of Proteus, but it might be an interesting method for Runners to fight back against Tags attempting to trash cards, like how ambush cards in the Corp vaults lure in Runners.

How prevalent are cards that redirect Virus and Damage tokens? That seems like a ripe area for playing with mechanics without needing to re-write the entire game. ****, I wish I has a box set already so I could be looking at all the existing variations.

Another thought: Will we see variations on Runner IDs based on their "racial" template? ie; will there be advantages seen commonly among Bioroids/Cyborgs/Gene-splicers/Base Humans? Would there be a use for cards that affect a Runner based on what "race" they may be?

I think they should be called "Patches" and the back should read like patch notes. Have the first cycle have packs v1.1-1.6 and the second have v2.1-2.6. Have deluxe expansions be called "System Upgrades". I also think they should expand upon current gameplay mechanics and not introduce any new ones for a cycle or two, but give us identities so that we can try new things.

Another thought: Will we see variations on Runner IDs based on their "racial" template? ie; will there be advantages seen commonly among Bioroids/Cyborgs/Gene-splicers/Base Humans? Would there be a use for cards that affect a Runner based on what "race" they may be?

Bioroid runners would be so cooool.

Fotonurth said:

Heh, I know, right? I've been playing the Android board game again with some friends, and the Bioroid detective has been a popular choice. I'm not saying add completely new play mechanics in addition to the basic concepts already presented, but I think it would make deck building that much more interesting for Runners if you see the "race" designation on the ID card in all of the Runner factions, then start seeing cards that have effect text that might go different ways based on what the race might be.

"Black Ops Blackout Team"

Trash 2 hardware of Runner's choice. -OR- Give 1 brain damage to Bioroid Runner

Flavor Text: "Don't worry sir, with these new EMP rifles we can deal with whatever we may find without having to worry about waking the neighbors."

Man, I am willing to buy packs of just Neutral cards for both sides right now. If you don't do any deckbuilding there's enough stuff in the box for up to three players, just not enough Neutral cards.

There are still a lot of untapped ideas left in the original card pool, obviously. So major new mechanics don't seem likely in the near term.

More agendae to choose from, more options for the existing themes, and some countertech for the major strategies are what I'm looking for in the first cycle or two. Expansions that give me more IDs and maybe add a twist on existing mechanics would be my next wish. AGOT took a long time to get an expansion out for all 6 Houses; 7 factions would probably take a while, too. So perhaps they won't follow that model and will use expansions for new mechanics or make them broader--making them for just the two sides and giving each faction a bunch of cards. It'll be fun to find out.

I love the patch and system upgrade idea. Sticking with the cyberpunk motif as much as possible is always appreciated.

I could see them initially doing separate Runner and Corp deluxe sets instead of faction ones. There's more faction mixing in Netrunner compared to GOT, AFAIK so all the cards would be useful for deckbuilding no matter what faction you favor. Then they could introduce hidden resources in the Runner expansion without giving one faction a huge advantage.

Considering players are expected to have both a corp and a runner deck in organized play, I get the feeling we will not be seeing expansion for just one side or another.

Janus said:

Unless they release a separate expansion for each side each month. I wouldn't mind that for the first few months, just so that the card base can be built up rather quickly. After that, maybe just drop to one expansion a month, with each side getting half of the box contents.

Regardless of what they do, I hope they just start releasing expansions right away. Otherwise, the championship tournament in November is not going to be all that different from the icebreaker tournament at GenCon… or any more interesting. Heck, it'll probably be a lot more predictable by that point, so even less fun.

The card base builds up at the same speed regardless of whether they do focused packs (1 per faction) or even distribution across all factions.

I'd rather see everyone get equal airtime.

byronczimmer said:

No, I mean multiple expansion packs per month, not just the typical 60-card single pack for a whole month. They could do a corp expansion pack AND a runner expansion pack each month, getting more cards out than they normally do with their other games.