Card Game: Around A Round

This week we take a bit of a wider perspective on the Realm of Runes Card Game, looking at how the game round progresses as a whole. This should tie together all of the disparate elements that we've looked at previously, giving a strong impression of the overall game play experience. We'll use the introductory villain we looked at before as our example. But first, let's take another look at a character mat to see the round sequence.

We'll assume, at this point, that the game has already been set up in advance. The Kraken has been chosen as the villain, and its Tentacles have been dealt out and assigned to each player. Also, each of the characters has assigned another one of the characters to be their initial ally. For our example, let's assume the Paladin is the Sorcerer's ally, but the Rogue is the Paladin's ally. (The Sorcerer is the Rogue's ally.) We'll also assume that each character has drawn their starting hand. Our Paladin already has 3 Equipment, 1 Magic, and 1 Tactics card in her hand. As the Sorcerer's ally, we'll draw an extra Magic card during our Upkeep when we get there, but that doesn't apply to our starting hand.

Villain Acts is the first step of the round. The villain always goes first in any game. In this case, The Kraken deals 4 Melee damage do one of the Heroes. The Heroes get to choose who takes that damage. Our Paladin reduces any damage to her by 1, so she may be a good choice. Other characters might have their own ways of reducing or canceling the damage, so the players will want to discuss which character should take the damage. Players don't always get to choose who takes damage, so this is a good opportunity to strategize.

Next up is the Player Phase. During this phase, each character takes their turn. The players get to choose the order in which they take their turns, and this order can change from round to round. Perhaps we already have a Greataxe in our hand, but the Sorcerer has a Bull's Strength. It could be helpful for them take their turn first, so that they can play their card on us to boost our damage with the Greataxe. You do not have to decide the whole round order at once, you can wait to see what happens on a turn before deciding who goes next.

Once a player begins to take their turn, however, they must finish it before another character can take a turn. Let's take a look at our turn. The first step of our turn is Upkeep. We draw our hand of cards again, but this time we get an extra magic card because we are the Sorcerer's ally. These new cards are added to our hand that we drew at the beginning of the game, or what's left of them if we used any of them as reactions when taking damage or on another player's turn.

After Ppkeep, our henchman acts by using its Start of Turn ability. For The Kraken, all henchmen are Tentacles, so this will play out the same for every character's turn. But other villains have several different henchmen with their own, unique abilities. What a henchman will do can be another reason to choose which character takes their turn in which order! In this case, the Tentacle starts our turn by dealing us 1 Melee damage. As a tanky Paladin, we can safely ignore this damage. Our Sorcerer friend wasn't so lucky on her turn, though.

After the henchman starts our turn, we finally get to act. We have two actions to use and can use them however we see fit. We could use the action on our character mat, or we could use actions from the cards in our hand. Since the Sorcerer gave us Bull's Strength, we probably want to do some melee damage, if we can, to take advantage of the buff she gave us. What we choose to do is up to us, though other players will probably have their own suggestions! It's important to remember that a villain is not yet an eligible Target until all of its henchmen have been defeated. We might want to take a swipe at The Kraken, but we have to settle for its Tentacles until we get through them all!

Whatever we choose to do with our actions, our henchman acts again after we're done using its End of Turn ability. Again, we have innate damage reduction, so we are not hurt by this effect either. Not all characters are so lucky! In the first round of the game, it is unlikely that our henchman has already been defeated, but that may not be the case in subsequent rounds. If our henchman has been defeated during our turn, it does not activate its End of Turn ability at all. However, if our henchman was already defeated by the time we started our turn the villain activates its Special ability during this step instead! As we make progress against the Tentacles, The Kraken itself becomes much more active!

After our henchman acts again (or the villain acts if we started our turn with a defeated henchman), it's time for our Cleanup step. During this step of the turn, we check to make sure we're at (or under) the hand size limit. We can only keep up to eight cards at the end of our turn, which is the same for all players. If we have more than that, we'll have to choose which ones to get rid of. Keep this hand limit in mind when taking a turn. Sometimes it might be worth using an extra card for something if you wouldn't have room to keep it anyway! At this time we also flip our action token over to reflect the fact that our turn is done. We can't take another turn this round, so the next turn will be taken by someone who can still act.

After all players have taken their turn for the round, the villain acts again using its End of Round ability. In this case, The Kraken and all of its living Tentacles recover five Hit Points. The Kraken isn't a Target yet, since we haven't defeated all of its henchmen, but any of its Tentacles which still have Hit Points gain five more, up to their maximum Hit Points. The presence of this ability at the end of the round can influence the strategy of your turns. It might be worth doing something else to set up for later, rather than doing a small amount of damage, if that damage is just going to be undone at the end of the round!

After the villain acts again, it's time for some Divine Intervention. If this is the first round of the game, you'll be drawing a deity card for the first time. Otherwise, the card you draw now will replace the effects of the deity card you already had. The deity's instant effect is applied immediately but watch out for the passive effect! This effect might have a huge impact on how the next round plays out, but it can also modify the instant effect as well. The deity you get might be good or bad for the players or might have an effect which might be good or bad depending on the overall game situation. Some villains can remove the good deities from the deck before the game even starts, making them much more challenging!

The last step of the round is Housekeeping. Check to see if the game has been won. This is usually obvious if the villain still has Hit Points remaining, but some other villains might have victory conditions which do not consider their Hit Points at all! If the game is not over, then there's a few steps that we need to take to prepare for the next round. Any timed cards, such as that Bull's Strength, are discarded during this phase of the round. Timed cards come with a timer token for free when they're played, but there are ways to add more, such as by heightening. If the card has timer tokens on it, discard one of those tokens instead of discarding the card. It lasts for at least another whole round! Finally, all players flip their action tokens back over to prepare for the next round.

The game proceeds this way for as many rounds as it takes to win or lose the game. The cards you draw each round, and the influence of the deities, make each round play out just a bit differently from the round before, keeping things from getting stale. Each villain has its own unique feel and theme, and they come with a spectrum of difficulties. The Kraken we've used as an example is the easiest one, meant to ease new players into how the rules work. Other villains can use their abilities and their unique henchmen to make the game behave in new and unexpected ways! Next time we'll return to the Tome of Whispers to introduce another of the new classes from that book, so stay tuned!