His Lordship Reviews: The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

Ah, Professor Tolkien, when you borrowed liberally from the Nibelungenlied, Edda, Beowulf et al to justify your invented languages, little did you know the tidal wave you would release upon the world. As adults and children have sought a closer attachment to your world, generations of role-playing games both licensed and unlicensed have arisen to meet demand, and the most influential of these would unquestionably be Gygax and Arneson's Dungeons & Dragons. It has itself gone through many generations, the family occasionally separating into cadet branches before returning to the fold. Said family is currently labouring under just such a separation - the current "main" edition has a junior partner in Pathfinder - and this partner which might, arguably, have overtaken the heir apparent.

None of these issues need concern us here. We are concerned with the recent card game spinoff which has been taking the tabletop gaming world by storm - the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (and its living card game-like business model).

What kind of a game is it?

Picture by rexbinary

This is not a question which is entirely easy to answer. The glib response is that it's a co-operative card game with elements of deck construction, hand management, and push-your-luck. However, this statement does not at all convey the unique feel and structure of the game.

This is a game which flies the flag of its RPG origins from a high mast. Players begin by selecting a character - and will immediately be presented with a list of relevant "skills" and "subskills" which will be second nature to an experienced RPG player, but may be less than obvious to someone from a standard gaming background.

The uninitiated will be saved from the joys/horrors of "character creation", however, as there's nothing that can be done to change the skills (at least, not at the outset). Initial customisation happens at the point of deck construction - that's right, just like Magic: The Gathering and its many imitators, you will have to choose cards from the box to build a deck to play a game you don't understand yet. In practice, this isn't really a problem, even for newcomers - each character has strict numbers of each type of card they can acquire (weapons, spells, items and so forth), they can only choose cards with the "basic" property, and the manual helpfully contains suggested builds for each character.

The deck construction doesn't stop there - each adventure scenario has a set of locations, and each location has its own deck constructed from random monsters to fight, barriers to overcome, treasures to acquire and arch-villains to defeat (thus winning the game).

Once you have your character's deck, it's time to play. The game has thirty turns in total, barring certain special effects; each character's turn consumes one of these. The character will (usually) choose a location and "explore" said location, turning over the next card of the location deck and dealing with whatever that card throws at them. By and large, this will involve testing one of the character's attributes by rolling the relevant die type listed on their character's card, as adjusted by cards played from the hand. If it's good, you can add it to your hand, and thence your deck. If it's bad, you banish it back to the box.

I could go on, but I'd just be repeating the game manual. I'll sum up. If there is any way to describe the genre of this game, it would be a "slow deckbuilder". Unlike a normal deckbuilder, player decks are not repeatedly turned over during the game (indeed, if you run out of cards in your deck, you die). Instead, cards are gained principally to the hand, rather than the deck, during the game; after the session, players rebuild their decks, potentially including new cards obtained (and thus providing a sense of slow growth, as if it were a pen-and-paper RPG). Also unlike most deckbuilders, it's a cooperative game; unlike most cooperative games, sessions will usually result in victory for the players (again, befitting an RPG spinoff). New card packs bring new adventures, and also new threats and treasures commensurate with the increased challenge (and power level of the heroes). Overall it's a bit of an oddball experience from the perspective of a traditional deck-builder, with final success and failure in the game determined by die rolls rather than cards played.

Why wouldn't you buy this game?

Picture by the author

One criticism levelled is that, ultimately, success or failure is determined by die roll. Contrary to the opinions of some critics, there is plenty of room for strategy arising from hand and deck; both risk-reduction and hand management are key to winning. You must judge when to expend resources to facilitate victory, and when it may be acceptable to take the loss. Ultimately, though, a really bad roll can scupper almost any crucial play. Consequently those who are in it for the cardplay, and want their card-related strategies to give planned, assured outcomes, might be better served elsewhere (perhaps Thunderstone or Ascension).

Another group who aren't going to fully appreciate the game are those who only play with one or two characters - play is more strategic the more characters are present, and small character numbers can lead to the impression that this is just a "reveal card, roll die" game. There's really no reason to play small parties, however, except for RP reasons - it's perfectly possible to run large parties solo.

Finally, this is, as stated, a "slow deckbuilder" - the only way to really get what the game is trying to deliver is to play it over many sessions. Character evolution is one of the most compelling parts of RPG and RPG-like gamers, and you aren't getting value unless you play a character through multiple scenarios.

Who would this game appeal to?

Picture by Daniel Thurot

Looking at my words so far, one might conclude that I'm not sold on this game. The truth is... I adore it. I'm soloing three parties simultaneously through all the adventure packs to date. There are, objectively-speaking, more elegantly-designed fantasy games - my favourite Mage Knight springs to mind. But this game captures something else. It captures, at least in part, the feeling of RPG adventuring. With just subtle differences in how the spell and weapon cards work, it succeeds in making warriors and wizards feel different from one another. True, it lacks a GM, and hence lacks the freedom of action of pen-and-paper; indeed, choices are largely to do with expenditure of resources rather than paths of action. But it delivers strongly elsewhere - in its slow character evolution, in the feeling that anything could be behind the next door, and the heroic triumphs and unlikely disasters provided by a roll of the dice.

Would I recommend it? Hard to say. It's difficult to be objective about this game, as it seems almost perfectly aimed at me - an ex-pen and paper player, who couldn't possibly commit the time to play a "real" RPG, but wants a convenient means of recapturing some of that feeling. For anyone else in my same situation, this is a dream game.

On the other hand, to a traditional board game player, the randomness and slow deck turnover could be unpalatable. Nonetheless, it has been a huge seller, and has been widely received positively. To be honest, my personal love of the game notwithstanding, I can't really understand why - it's natural demographic should be far too limited to give rise to such success. Clearly it appeals to more people than I would have thought. If you think you would enjoy the deck evolution and the die rolling, then please join us retired RPGers. If you go to sleep dreaming only of Caylus and Agricola, perhaps you'd be more comfortable looking elsewhere.