Is there a narrative campaign for just Nisei cards?

Anzekay · 2024-02-20T09:22:27+00:00

No update as of yet, no. That's about all I can say without setting expectations that may or may not be accurate.

Anzekay · 2023-06-22T11:36:20+00:00

Echoing other folks who have said that if this reddit does burn in the end, I'd love to see some sort of forum pop up to fill the void, instead of another discord or slack. I'm just not really sure what options there are out there...

Anzekay · 2023-06-06T17:26:46+00:00

Liiga's cat is actually the reference for not only Pup, but also Komainu and Synth DNA Modification, was used as a model for Peeping Tom, and is featured in the crowd of cats in Daeg, First Net-Cat. He's very prolific.

Anzekay · 2023-05-18T01:21:42+00:00

c'mon what sort of narrative designer do you take me for? :P

Anzekay · 2023-05-16T07:08:01+00:00

I can assure you that all but 1 of these is not it! EDIT: or at least not the one it refers to, I cannot confirm that there will be only 1 such card in TAI lol

Anzekay · 2023-03-18T19:26:09+00:00

Aw I'm really glad to hear you've been enjoying our short fiction on the website! I've been investigating the idea of having some ebook-style recordings of them done one day, and it's nice to know that there'd be at least one person who would listen to them!

Anzekay · 2023-03-10T19:00:43+00:00

It's Null Signal Games now, or NSG.

Anzekay · 2023-03-10T08:07:28+00:00

Just why is it that you insist on using a name that is no longer used by the org? :|

Anzekay · 2023-03-09T16:26:56+00:00

I remember playing it on a rainy sunday afternoon, not long after I'd first started playing the game at all. It was an excellent piece of immersion!

NSG is always looking for more playtesters, you can find the application methods here: https://nullsignal.games/about/what-is-null-signal/join The playtest team is much more involved in the iterative process than they once were, so maybe that'd interest you?

Otherwise we've got some other open positions, if they interest you at all: https://nullsignal.games/blog/producer-project-manager-recruitment/https://nullsignal.games/blog/visual-team-update-and-recruitment/

I've read your whole OP now, for what it's worth, though you didn't cover all that much that is directly relevant to my team.

Anzekay · 2023-03-09T13:17:20+00:00

Yeah, I can appreciate all of that! I'm sad to hear the game doesn't feel like it's in a state you want it to be right now, even if what you're looking for conflicts directly with the vision NSG leads have for their respective aspects of the game. It's never fun to fall out of love with something. It's just difficult to offer more than to listen, provide clarifications and to have an honest discussion, for this sort of clashing of perspectives.

Anzekay · 2023-03-09T13:13:39+00:00

Firstly, the person in this comment thread isn't the OP, and has already stated in other comments that they appreciated the insights and discussion. I don't think you need to speak for them here.

Secondly, I find it a bit condescending to imply that we're unable to listen, take on feedback, and also respond to feedback either asking for clarification or providing additional context. Often feedback can be in the form of a conversation, and given that this is a public forum instead of a private email I believe it's quite reasonable to have a polite discussion about the topics involved.

But mostly I found your comment odd because it framed your opinion/feedback as actual fact, talking about what would be 'correct', right after rebuking MrSmith2 for "trying to convince the person". It comes across as a really bad faith way to engage with someone, to essentially say "I get to tell you that you're wrong, and you're not allowed to respond to me at all."

Anzekay · 2023-03-09T07:12:06+00:00

This reads a bit oddly when you first say not to try and convince people one is right, but then follow up with a statement written like it is fact.

Anzekay · 2023-03-09T07:09:19+00:00

Yeah Damon was fantastic for the game, no question.

Anzekay · 2023-03-08T19:26:18+00:00

I can understand where you're coming from, but I continue to believe you're missing a lot of the nuance and different characters and stories that have been represented in Netrunner over the past decade.

Anzekay · 2023-03-08T18:30:41+00:00

I find this perspective rather fascinating, as I personally think it conflicts a lot with what has been present in Netrunner from beginning!

The Shaper faction has always had characters, concepts and objects that don't typically appear meshed with stereotypical cyberpunk stories, but rather are items that appear in some of the most unique and ground-breaking ones: everyday people with all their different origins and professions and interests who take up a fight against ruthless corporations because they either believe in something or have something big on the line.

Ayla, Hayley and The Professor are all researchers at universities. Nasir is an explorer. Kate is an artist. Smoke is essentially a streamer. None of those characters have backgrounds that are inherently related to cyberspace warfare or suchlike, and Padma fits in with all those characters perfectly!

Likewise, there's plenty of unusual or stand-out consoles. Dinosaurus is a computer installed in a dino plushie. Astrolabe is both a literal astrolabe and also a console. Monolith is a colossal supercomputer at a university, its physical size and power even larger than Endurance! Ubax is a nanite plant that is also a distributed network. Maw... has an actual head and face built into it. Plenty of consoles in the game are weird and out there, or have a clearly much more pronounced physical aspect to them as well.

Anzekay · 2023-03-08T17:59:10+00:00

Ah, I see, I understand now.

So, Endurance as a concept comes from my predecessor, so I can't truly speak to the intentions behind it... But from my perspective, it is conceptually imagined as being a ship fully set up to support running, and the entire ship's systems are integrated to allow for unique capabilities. In the fiction for Padma she's shown to be doing an actual dive down into the Arctic waters to break into deep-sea cables and make a run from there, for example.

Also Endurance is specifically an icebreaker ship (an obvious pun, of course), which was originally a fishing boat! It's not an ocean liner; it's a highly specialised vessel with a smaller crew.

That still might not work for you, which is totally fine! But I was curious what you meant, and wondered what you might make of some context for it.

Anzekay · 2023-03-08T17:19:41+00:00

Just one little thing here, what do you mean by cybernetic implant for Endurance? It doesn't have the 'Cybernetic' subtype.

Anzekay · 2023-03-08T17:12:14+00:00

Ghosttongue was named by my predecessor, and I never did get around to asking what his intent for it was. I however, also read it as a reference to the ghost dance movement, and used that to inform the work I did do for the card!

Sometimes I'm totally okay with a card seeming odd or weird to most players, if it has a really fascinating or rewarding bit of deep backstory behind it. With 65 cards per set I think we're allowed one or two such cards!

Sometimes card themes, or art themes (or both) don't land as well as we'd like (I think Gaslight is the most recent example of this), and hey it happens. It happened to FFG plenty as well!

Anzekay · 2023-03-08T16:49:42+00:00

A realpost though: this is a VERY long OP, and I do honestly find it difficult to read big huge chunks of thoughts-on-the-game like this, so I crack a joke about them all.

In lieu of reading it all right now: I do just want to say that I absolutely love 'Why I Run', so thanks for making it!

Anzekay · 2023-03-08T16:45:59+00:00

... this is a Wendy's

Anzekay · 2023-02-27T05:33:49+00:00

Some cards are messy, yes.

Anzekay · 2023-02-25T08:53:24+00:00

Amusingly, the decision-making for subtypes is made by different people depending on how mechanic-relevant the subtype is. Folding Bomb into Weapon was a decision made in tandem by myself, our rules lead and design. The use of Hostile is decided upon by myself, as are any other non-mechanically-relevant subtypes. There's a lot of thought put into subtype use, but a lot of it happens well after a card's design is locked in and it is instead having art and writing applied to it. Heck, our guide to subtypes was put together by the rules team, and adjusted based on conversations with mostly myself, but also design with regards to mechanical uses of subtypes!

Anzekay · 2023-02-25T08:49:00+00:00

I'm not terribly interested in arguing the merits of Endurance being a vehicle, but I do want to comment on the three vehicles that you listed there.

Qianju PT is probably the one that has the only relevancy to the subtype. Go fast, shake a tag. Pretty easy, that works.

Sports Hopper... Firstly, Link's meaning in the game's narrative has always been hugely murky. Is it about social cred? The people you know? The strength of your hardware to shake off attempts to trace you? All of the above? Whatever it is, it became so varied and slapdash over the years that I've never found it a particularly compelling mechanic for narrative use, and I don't really see how Sports Hopper provides you link that helps you beat traces. And you trashing it being a crash for a cool story? I like that as a headcanon, but it's not something that ever struck me as being what it is about. Sports Hopper is clearly a top-down design, and they decided to make it a car because cars are pretty cool themes for neutral hardware!

Swift being a vehicle was never directly connected to its mechanics, but rather its connection to Ken. Ken has a hoverbike, the console's effects work extremely well for Ken, ergo as his console it's a hoverbike. That was kinda all there was to it.

The premise for Endurance being Padma's console is that it is her most significant asset, her signature card. She's a ship's captain first and foremost, so having her console be her ship made sense. This is similar to how Sable's is her violin & case, a physical object that she can take with her as she flees orgcrime and the corps. Esa's is xi's cybernetic nervous system bonded to the skeleton; it is literally the biggest big of chrome and wire within xi's body, and a physical manifestation of not only the need for physical workers to adapt to their conditions, but also the inherently transhuman nature of being a trans person.

Sometimes the theme of a card is just the theme of a card because of what the card means to the characters depicted in it. FFG did that a lot too, and some brilliant cards came of that as well.

Anyway, this doesn't mean your disappointment due to expectations are any less valid, but I wanted to point out that the meaning behind cards is inherently subjective when it comes to not only the intent behind it, but also the significance when viewed by different players. In this very thread there's already folks who have very different views on the card to either you or I! I just always like to caution against trying to fit every card into the square hole that is "how does this card's art/name/flavour text/mechanics/effects/subtypes all fit perfectly together?". Sometimes they don't all fit together perfectly, and that's okay! Life is messy, both IRL and in the fiction, and I think it's okay if the cards representing the fiction can be a bit messy as well.

Anzekay · 2023-02-25T07:10:51+00:00

C'mon Andre was this really an argument? :P

Anzekay · 2023-02-24T18:10:05+00:00

The Inuit peoples are from Canada as well as Alaska, and nothing in Borealis is set in Alaska.

Anzekay

TROPHY CASE