Star Wars Customizable Card Game (Dragon 230)

For the game, see Star Wars CCG.

Star Wars Customizable Card Game is Rick Swan's Premiere review in Dragon #230 (June 1996, pages 113–114). Swan wrote it for the magazine's Role-playing Reviews column. The same pages pair the review with Decipher's Star Trek Alternate Universe expansion.

Swan praised the graphics and called play clunky. He wrote that a single starter was not enough cards to have much fun.

Dragon #230, June 1996, page 113.

Dragon #230, June 1996, page 114.

Star Wars Customizable Card* game
Starter deck: 60 cards, rules booklet
Booster pack: 15 cards
Decipher, Inc. $9.50 (starter)
$3 (booster)
Design: Tom Braunlich, Rollie Tesh, Ross Campbell, Dan Burns, and Richard Borg

Alternate Universe
Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game* expansion
Booster pack: 15 cards
Decipher, Inc.
Design: uncredited $3

Yeah, I know the Star Trek card game has its problems. Yeah, I know it's tough putting together a usable deck without investing a fortune. And yeah, I know that finding an Enterprise card is about as likely as finding a diamond in a box of Cracker Jacks. But I like it anyway. I like the streamlined rules, the nifty missions, the clever way it simulates all the elements of a good SF adventure (see Dragon® Magazine issue #218 for more). So naturally, I had high hopes for the Star Wars card game (no connection, by the way, to the Star Wars role-playing tame). And why not? Same company. Same genre. Same designers.

It even looks the same. In fact, the best thing about Star Wars is the first-rate presentation, making it one of the few card games worth buying just for the graphics. The cards boast clutter-free layouts, engaging text, and vivid colors. The crisp photographs cover every memorable image from the films, no matter how obscure. I, for one, could've lived without a close-up of the dice hanging in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. Nor did I need individual cards depicting the backs — that's right, the backs — of Obi, Leia, and the Jawas. And in the tradition of the Star Trek card game, the main characters are conspicuously absent; you can open boosters till your fingers go numb without finding a single Han Solo or Chewbacca. Still, I had a blast savoring my favorite scenes and characters, especially the great cantina aliens like the hammer-headed Momaw Nadon.

If only Star Wars played as good as it looked. But alas, its merely okay. Each player begins with a 30-card deck — the Light Side player using gray cards, the Dark Side using black — which represents his total Life Force. Location cards are arranged in a row, representing, in essence, the game board. Players attempt to control Locations by deploying Character cards; if you wipe out all enemy personnel from a contested Location, the Location is yours. Controlled Locations generate Force points; the more Force points you generate, the more cards you can bring into play. Force points are expended to initiate battles, necessary to clear out enemy Locations. When a battle is declared, the combatants activate their Equipment cards and fire their Weapon cards. Each player draws the top card from his deck, then checks the upper corner for the Destiny Number. The Destiny Number — equivalent to a random die-roll — is added to the combatants' Power Values along with other pertinent modifiers. Destroyed cards are discarded. Additionally, each player suffers an attrition loss, sacrificing a number of cards equal in value to his opponents Destiny draw. After the battle ends, players move their characters with Vehicle cards (Landspeeder, Lift Tube), tinker with Device cards (Vaporator, Tatooine Utility Belt), and play Interrupt cards (Radar Scanner, Hyper Escape) to screw up the opposition. The first player to deplete the enemy's Force — which occurs when the enemy has no cards left in his deck — wins the game.

Granted, it's as action-packed as a demolition derby. But its also a bit clunky. The Force rules, for example, involve a rather convoluted "flow" cycle, where cards begin in a Force Pile, then move to a Used Pile, then to a Reserve Deck, then back to the Force Pile. The attrition rules seem arbitrary and unnecessarily harsh. A typical game loses steam toward the end, when the outcome becomes all but inevitable. And though its possible for two to play with the 60 cards in a single starter deck, I wouldn't count on having much fun. You'll need a much larger pool — I'd guess at least 100 Dark Side cards and 100 Light Siders — to make Star Wars come alive.

Much better is Alternate Universe, a 122-card Star Trek expansion that introduces a new category of cards called Doorways. When a Doorway is played, it opens the Star Trek universe to all sorts of alternate realities, parallel timelines, and illusory experiences. In game terms, it allows players to deploy specially marked Alternate Universe (AU) cards, such as Royale Casino (opponents play a game of blackjack, using Cunning numbers) and Samuel Clemens' Pocket Watch (an action scheduled to occur in the next turn occurs instead in the current turn). Trouble is, Doorway cards seem to be few and far between; I found them in only three of eight of my booster packs. Rather than fuss with the Doorways, we threw them out and used an alarm clock. (We set the clock to go off in a random number of minutes. AU cards could be played until the alarm rang.) But even without the Doorways — for that matter, even without the AU cards — the boosters contain enough bizarre Standard Universe cards to justify their purchase. How bizarre, you ask? How about the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a, an exotic fish that modifies Cunning and Strength? Or Mot's Advice, which bestows the skill of Barbering?

Evaluation: Star Wars has a lot going for it. The interplay between Locations and Vehicles imparts an appealing sense of movement. The imaginative flourishes — the Steal option, which allows players to move cards from the Light Side to the Dark Side, and vice versa; the Utinni Effect, which compels characters to relocate to specific sites — make it a challenge to master. And the artwork ought to attract collectors like bloodmobiles attract vampires. If it'd hit the stores a few years ago, we'd have been doing handsprings. In today's deck-drenched market, however, its just another card game, eminently playable but nothing to squander the rent money on. Star Trek, on the other hand, remains a delight. Alternate Universe doesn't do much to expand the rules, but it serves as a good excuse to revisit a terrific product.

(Information: Decipher, Inc., PO Box 56, Norfolk, VA 23501.)

See also

• Magazines · Media · Dragon (magazine) · Rick Swan · Premiere Limited · Star Trek CCG
• Tom Braunlich · Rollie Tesh · Ross Campbell · Dan Burns · Richard Borg
• A Forced Effort (The Duelist)

External links

• Dragon Magazine, Internet Archive (TSR, June 1996)