February 19, 1996

Netrunner: Hacking With a Shuffled Deck

CONNECTIONS / By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN

The game, which was demonstrated last week at the Toy Fair in New York, is set in the "dark techno-future" in which "ruthless corporations scheme to accomplish secret agendas as they build elaborate fortresses of data." In opposition to such plots, "anarchistic netrunners hack the system, infiltrating data forts to liberate information." But this game of road-warrior libertarianism and cyberpunk paranoia will actually have nothing to do with data forts or hackers, nor will it require 64-bit chips and hand-held controllers. "Netrunner" is a card game.

It is joining a genre that developed out of the extraordinary success of "Magic: The Gathering," which, like "Netrunner," was created by Richard Garfield and manufactured by Wizards of the Coast. Since its introduction in August 1993, "Magic" has inspired a cult among teen-agers and a surprising number of adults who have collected its cards, with their mythic images, cryptic instructions, and literary quotations.

And while "Magic" flourishes in high school cafeterias, comic store back rooms and even on the occasional bridge table, it has found a particularly comfortable home in the technological realm. There are at least a hundred Web sites devoted to the game and Usenet groups proliferate, complete with strategy hints, card trading proposals and news announcements. Wizards of the Coast now has offices in Seattle, Glasgow, Antwerp and Paris. More than a billion "Magic" cards have been sold.

In fact, the "elaborate fortresses of data" constructed by Wizards of the Coast have led to a new genre of collectible card games. Other games with similar character include "Middle Earth" (based on Tolkien's novels), "Illuminati" (based on political conspiracy theories), "Overpower" (based on Marvel's comics), along with "Rage," "Star Trek" and "Star Wars."

According to the Game Manufacturers' Association, the genre generated $280 million worth of business in 1994 and has continued to grow. Yesterday the first international "Magic" tournament came to an end in New York's Puck Building, in which hundreds of players competed.

These card games, like "Netrunner," also bear an intriguing relationship to technological game play. The effect can be read in Internet newsgroups where the often obscure "Magic" dialect is spoken. A law student seeks a Web server so he can offer an advice page on "Magic" strategy. A serious competitor asks whether foreign language cards should be banned from tournaments. "If the opponent controls no land," goes one technical query, "can you still tap a Felwar Stone for colorless mana?" "Does anyone out there have a Baron Sengir for trade?" another message asks.

This specialized language, the detail, the intensity of the interest, give some feel for the kind of social and strategic world "Magic" creates. Mr. Garfield constructed a universe possessing more subtleties than he could envision. He wanted serious players to be led into conversation, studying, collecting -- forming new communities and cultures.

When inventing the game Mr. Garfield also applied his doctoral training in combinatorial mathematics -- a field that studies the interaction of objects in complex systems. In "Magic," each 40-60 card deck is just a small slice of a dominion composed of thousands of cards, each with its own artwork (ranging from clever to kitsch) and instructions detailing the cards' powers and influences on other cards. New cards are always being introduced, giving the sense of an evolving universe.

Each player's deck is actually a construction, a combination of forces and resources that create a persona. Collecting cards is partly a strategic activity, allowing for versatility and innovation, but also an obsession, encouraging many an under-the-counter request for trades or single-card purchases. There is even a stock market report for collectible card games -- Scrye magazine -- that publishes the range of prices paid for individual cards.

It is no accident that such strategies and interactions have found such a home in cyberspace. There are even plans to design computer versions of some of the games; Spectrum Holobyte's long-delayed PC version of "Magic" is expected to include an on-line network to preserve the game's social aspect.

But "Netrunner" may lift game play to a new technological plane: no hacking will now be possible without a well-shuffled deck.

CONNECTIONS is published weekly, on Mondays. Click here for links to other columns in this series. R