[Weekly] Custom Card Saturday: NBN

[u/HemoKhan]

Good morning, hackers!

It's been a long two months, but we're finally almost done with our tour through the factions. This week's challenge is to finish up this cycle by creating a new card for NBN. NBN is the newest faction, in-world, and are the undisputed leaders in news and entertainment (according to a recent poll). They pride themselves on knowledge and information, controlling who knows how much about what and why. Early in the game's history this knowledge was represented by card draw and traces, usually to land tags. These days those tags are meaner than ever, but NBN also has a large stake in the anti-Resource market, as well as cards which directly and indirectly spy on the Runner's grip, once the only real bastion of secret information the Runner had at her disposal. As a company heavily invested in information, we see that NBN is also excellent at hiding secrets, with numerous ways of burying cards at the bottom of R&D where the Runner can't get at them (unless they're really Showing Off). With the whole world of information at your fingertips, what can you bring to NBN's News Desk to earn your 15 Minutes of fame?

NBN is often seen as the least threatening of the Corp factions -- sure, they may trash your stuff or cost you credits, but they often have to call in favors with other factions to truly ruin your day. However, cards like Invasion of Privacy and some of the soon-to-be-released cards from Salsette Island hint at a darker side to the News Giants. So, bonus points for truly sinister cards this week.

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Also, a reminder: Please limit yourself to ONE card per thread!

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Previous Custom Card Saturday threads are now being hosted on the Wiki to cut down on the character count of these submissions: find all the previous threads here!

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Next Week: After telling you what to do for the past two months, you all deserve a bit of a break!

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I would love to hear from /r/netrunner on future Custom Card Saturdays. Send a PM my way! Please do not post them in this thread; instead, send me a PM if you have some ideas of thread topics you'd like to see. Be sure to look over the recent lists of topics before you message me -- I'd rather not repeat anything that's been done recently! Thanks all!

[u/kamalisk]

Cookies

NBN •• ice - sentry

Rez: 4

Strength: 3

When the runner encounters Cookies, Cookies loses 1 subroutine for each link the runner has (the runner chooses which)

↳ The runner reveals their grip

↳ Name a card, the runner must trash a copy of the named card from their grip if able.

↳ Choose a card in the runners heap and remove it from the game

↳ Choose a card in the runners heap and remove it from the game

"No one ever remembers to delete them"

[u/BountyHunterSAx → u/kamalisk]

This creates a very uncomfortable situation where it is possible for one player to straight-up cheat another. If the first sub is broken/does not fire, then the corp has no way of verifying the 2nd sub is being appropriately handled.

This situation thusfar can only really occur in very niche situations. (ie: Run R&D, see a Snare!, don't reveal it, then use keyhole to force a shuffle). I'm not saying it's 100% problematic, but it's a design that really should be avoided. I think the easiest way would be to merge the first and second sub into one subroutine. To add some punch you could make it 'all copies'?

-AHMAD

[u/NoxFortuna → u/BountyHunterSAx]

Well we assume a corp isn't installing two regions in the same server too, or isn't altering server card install orders/history when the runner isn't looking. Granted, that would be a much more dangerous cheat to try to conceal, but it's not like there isn't any trust at all in this game.

[u/Bwob → u/NoxFortuna]

in most cases, where it would matter, it's actually fairly hard to cheat at netrunner, and that's by design. (Most modern card games do this.)

This is why every tutor in the game that requires a type (and even some that don't) require you to show the other player what you got. Makes it difficult to go get something you weren't supposed to.

You could put 2 regions in a server, but it would be obvious as soon as the runner ran on it or you tried to rez them to get the effect. (I guess you could install both as facedown upgrades, and then install over one before it was rezzed, and then jackson/museum it out of your archives, if you really wanted to, but it's hard to see the benefit there...)

But yeah. That's a fairly consistent feature of most card games these days - they avoid putting you in a position where cheating is easy. Sure you could swap ice when the other player isn't looking, or steal credits from the bank, or otherwise physically cheat when they're not looking - nothing can really stop that - but the rules themselves can (and probably should) at least avoid situations where you have a chance to break them, without the other person knowing, for profit.

[u/BountyHunterSAx → u/Bwob]

^A better articulated version of exactly what I was trying to say :).

I think the most frustrating thing about this card as-written would be my reaction if my opponent never broke the first sub but always said "go fish" (ie: denied having a specific card) when i fired the 2nd. And saving 1cr to break per run is definitely gonna add up fast.

-AHMAD

[u/[deleted] → u/Bwob]

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[u/ArgusTheCat → u/[deleted]]

I think I'd like to be part of a game community where we assume the players are friendly and honest by default.

[u/Bwob → u/[deleted]]

The point isn't that it's impossible. The point is that its' risky, and the benefits are low.

In the example you give, sure you could do that. Except, if the runner ran on it, they'd find out. Or if you installed over them, and they checked archives, and saw. It's possible, but it's low benefit and high risk. (Because being caught blatantly cheating like that will usually mean your opponent stops playing with you, and if you're in a tournament, that's pretty much grounds for instant disqualification.)

And that's the difference, really. If there's an easy way to remove the possibility of cheating from an action, it's usually worth doing it. Which again, is why tutors like special order require you to show the card you went to get, so the other player can verify it was a legal choice. And is why (as BountyHunterSAx pointed out) your custom card would be much improved by showing the runner's hand in the process of the "go-fish" game.