Card Game: Characters & Allies

This week we start taking a closer look at the Realm of Runes Card Game, starting with one of its most fundamental and important aspects, its characters. There are eighteen characters in the card game's base set. Each one is one of the class exemplars from one of the Realm of Runes RPG classes. All twelve of the classes from the core rules are represented, but so are the six classes added in the Tome of Whispers. With so many different characters to choose from, it is easy to put together new and interesting party compositions for each play of the game. If using the recommended method for choosing characters, dealing each player two to pick between, then even in a six-player game a third of the options won't even be on the table.

Let's start by taking a look at the fundamental structure of characters in the card game. Unlike in the RPG, where you always build your own character from scratch, the card game's characters are fully designed and ready to go. Each one is represented on a character mat, containing not just its own important statistics but also helpful reminders for how the game progresses. The card game does not use a board, so these mats fill that role instead. Let's look at one of the character mats and discuss its aspects.

The Paladin's Character Mat

Starting from the middle, each character has its max HP listed. In this case, the Paladin has 25. Squishier characters might have 15 or 20, while the beefiest characters have 30. If your character's HP are reduced to 0, you are slain and out of the game. Don't worry! There are a few ways to prevent that from happening, and sometimes divine intervention might bring you back if you're lucky!

Continuing in the middle, each character has two exclusive abilities. One always requires one of your actions to use, while the other one is always passively active. In this case, our Paladin can use an action to stash away equipment cards for later. This can help you keep good cards that might not be useful right now for later without having to worry about the hand size limit at the end of the turn. The Paladin's passive ability gives her constant passive damage reduction, making her quite the tank!

At the bottom in the middle is the character's card draw. A player draws the cards listed during game set up, and then again during the upkeep step of every one of their turns. Each character's draw pool is a unique combination of Equipment, Magic, and Tactics cards. Some characters, like our Paladin, have a fixed card draw. Others are given a choice for one of their cards. If your character has a choice, that choice can be made differently each time you draw cards. These cards are the backbone of the Realm of Runes Card Game, and we'll talk about them in more detail in a future entry.

The left side of the character mat is mostly for reference. At the top there's a reminder for the turn order sequence that the game follows. Below that is the character's art. This is the class exemplar's art from the Realm of Runes RPG books and is used as a visual reference for the class with the Ally rules.

Speaking of the Ally rules, this brings us to the right side of the character mat. This area is used for keeping track of your allies. The small space at the top is a place to put a marker showing which other character is your ally. This will come in handy, as several game effects specifically affect your ally or give them an opportunity not available to other characters. The bigger space down below is where you put the ally card given to you by another player.

The Paladin's Ally Card

Each character has an ally card which they pass to their ally. These cards provide the ally with an ability additional to the two that they always have on their own mat. In this way, each character has up to three total abilities, with one of them being dependent on party construction. In this case, a character who is our Paladin's ally would get the same passive damage reduction that the Paladin gets herself! Ally abilities may be passive or require actions to use.

Ally cards are distributed at the start of the game, but game effects may cause them to change during play. Players can intentionally change their allies by playing cards from their hand to do so. Other effects may cause players to pass their ally cards whether they want to or not! Allies might be reciprocal, but do not need to be. A player can never be their own ally, though. If you wind up with your own ally card, you do not have an ally until you are able to pass that card to another player later! Setting up beneficial ally relationships is key to a party that works together smoothly!

Characters and their ally relationships dramatically affect each playthrough of the Realm of Runes Card Game. It's not just your overall party construction which matters, but your relationship dynamics as well. There's a great deal of variety available to prevent party dynamics from becoming stale or predictable. Next week we'll return to the Tome of Whispers to take a look at one of the new character classes, so stay tuned!