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"The greatest casualty of the early corporate wars was the middle class."
—Flavor text for the Corporate War card
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Netrunner is a card game that depicts cyberspace combat between a global mega-corporation (the Corp) and a hacker (the Runner). The Corp's goal is to complete their secret agendas before the Runner can hack in and spoil their secret plans for world domination. It isn't easy, though, as the Corp has strong defensive data forts protected by malevolent computer programs known as ICE (short for Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics). The Runner must use special programs of their own (called Icebreakers) to break through and steal the hidden plans - to keep the Corp from taking over completely.
On May 10. Fantasy Flight Games announced a reboot of the long out of print game under the name Android: Netrunner
Compare Uplink.
This game provides examples of:
- A Worldwide Punomenon
- Cast From Hit Points: There are several cards that give the Runner a significant boost, in exchange for unpreventable brain damage.
- And one that gives you money in exchange for brain damage.
- The Cracker: The runner, possibly.
- Cyberpunk
- Cyberspace
- Dangerous Forbidden Technology: The "Omnitech Spinal Tap Cybermodem" card is a cheap, powerful computer... that has a 1 in 6 chance of causing unpreventable brain damage at the start of each of your turns. It also causes brain damage if you try to remove it.
- Everything Is Online
- Fan Nickname: Lots of them.
- Fan Sequel: Fan expansions, the only way cards can be added to the game now.
- Hollywood Hacking: You can kill programs with a virtual samurai or gangster, or bash down firewalls with a wrecking ball made of binary.
- Mind Rape: Several of the cards that deal Brain damage.
- Must Have Caffeine: The card "Jack n' Joe": "There's too much blood in my caffeine stream."
- Never Say "Die" / Deadly Euphemism: 'Flatlining'.
- Playful Hacker: The runner, possibly.
- Shout-Out: Several, mostly to Magic: The Gathering, with whom the game shares a creator.
- Unusual User Interface: 'Decks', the computers that Runners use, can be anything from a juiced-up PC, to a cybernetic implant that runs off of your thoughts.
- Take Over the World: The card "World Domination". If the corp manages to score the card, it wins the game.
- The Verse: Set in the same universe as Cyberpunk 2020.
- One of the two netrunner sourcebooks for Cyberpunk 2020 featured rules for using the Net Runner game as part of the RPG.
- Villain with Good Publicity: One of the Runner's possible victory conditions is giving the Corp enough Bad Publicity points that this trope no longer applies to them.
- Viral Marketing: The Corp. Advertisement card "BBS Whispering Campaign".