Homestar Runner's Trading Card Game/manual/play

From Homestar Runner Fanstuff Wiki

Alright, so you know about decks and cards and all those things. You're registered too, so you should be able to start once you're done with this manual. Now, at long last, you get to learn how to play the game!

So, basically, this is a combination between a card game and a board game. The games start fairly often, and are announced on the main page. Be sure to keep it on your watchlist so you can sign up when they start!

Before the game starts, each player draws one card. If it's a wildcard or an item, the player draws again. Compare speed stats of the cards drawn; The person with the highest speed stat goes first. (In a tie, the one who moves first is chosen randomly.)

NOTE: The cards people draw are determined by a randomizing program. Only Cardmasters get to use this program, due to possible cheating issues.

Now, in order, each player gets to pick the spot on the board they want to place the card they drew. They can only start on one of the bottom squares. The board is made up of a grid of spaces like the one below:

NOTE: Boards can vary in size, and not all of them are strictly triangular.

Each of the players now get to take turns moving their characters up the board. A turn goes as follows:

• When it's your turn, you may choose between drawing a random card from your deck or moving one of your character cards currently on the board.
  • If you draw a random card from your deck, it goes into your hand. You may then choose to place it on the board.
    • After you draw, you can continue your turn only by placing any card in your hand on any empty spot in the bottom of the board. You cannot move a card already on the field right after drawing. Wildcards' stats are determined by cardmasters. Once the card is placed, your turn will end. Or if you want, you can end your turn while keeping the card in your hand, either for strategic reasons or because there are no empty spots left.
    • If you draw an item card from your deck (or already had one in your hand), you should finish your turn by attaching it to whichever character card you want, friendly or otherwise. Note that some cards may have specific rules to follow when placing. Placing the item will end your turn. You may end your turn while keeping the item in your hand if you wish.
    • If you already have a card in your hand, you may use your turn placing it down rather than picking out a new card.
  • If you are moving one of your cards currently on the field, first you must choose if it is going to move forward or backward. Once you decide what you direction to move, you can't turn around in the middle of a turn, and you must use up all your movement points granted. You cannot initiate a battle with someone on the bottom row. (Cards at the bottom of the field can only move forward, and vice versa.)
    • The number of spaces your card must move can be anywhere from 1 to the speed stat of the card. The actual number is chosen randomly by cardmasters. You can choose to go left or right at every fork in the road.
    • You do not have to use up all movement points if you've reached the top/bottom of the board. The only other times you can choose to stop early is when continuing will have you wrestle a friendly piece on the throne, or when you engage in a wrestle.
• Although a few specific item cards are one-use only, most items attach onto a card of your choice (yours or an opponent's) and continue effecting it for a while. Instructions on how to apply items are written above.
  • You may remove a reusable item by taking it off a card right before you move it. The item will go back into your hand, and the now-unaffected card will get to move and finish your turn. When removing an item, you must move the corresponding character card right after.
  • If you are removing one of your items from an opponent's card, you do not have the above limitation and may continue your move normally, although you cannot remove two items in the same move.
  • When a card with a reusable item engages in battle, the item will get knocked off the card and fall back into your deck, whether you win or lose the battle. There it may get randomly redrawn at a later turn.
• If a card goes onto the same space of another card, the two cards will wrestle, even if they're on the same team. (More on wrestling later.) This includes the top throne space. Initiating a battle will clear any extra movement points you had yet to use in that turn.
  • The winner of the wrestling match goes forward an extra space, but the loser has to go down one space for every point in his speed stat, or until he hits the bottom of the field. If you moved backwards to initiate a battle, winning will still send you a space forward. If a wildcard loses, its stats are redrawn after going back.
  • It's possible for a wrestling winner to jump from card to card to go really far, as the chain can go until there's no one in his path to wrestle or the wrestler loses. Unless at the top, a winning card has to move forward one space, even if doing so will force a losing wrestle. A losing card can't challenge anyone on its way down, and must stop moving if it gets stuck.
    • The only time you don't have to obey the 'have to move up after winning' rule is when doing so will cause you to wrestle with one of your cards on the throne. You never have to wrestle down your throne card (although you can if you want).
  • After the wrestling process is done, the player's turn is over.
• If the game is near its end and you feel any of your possible moves will no longer have any signifigant effect on the outcome of the game (and no one else objects), you may pass your turn and do nothing, allowing gameplay to continue to the next player.
  • If all the players pass in the same turn, you may vote to end the game prematurely, but it has to be unanimous.
  • You may not pass simply to keep an opponent in a stalemate while you rack up points, or during the heat of the round when the winning position is still up in the air.
• You gain one point every time a single player's turn ends (you or otherwise) with one of your cards in the top throne space.

Repeat this process until the number of turns left is reduced to 0. The person with the most points at the end wins!

NOTE: If two people have the same score, then they each pick any card from their deck and wrestle them against each other. The winner of the wrestling match wins the game. If more than two people have the same score, then a round-robin tournament of wrestling begins. Essentially, the tiebreaker is decided by wrestling.

Playing on Square Boards

Playing on a board with square pieces is almost the same as playing with regular pieces, but with one difference about moving. After you know how many spaces you can move, you can either move up or down, like usual. However, you can also move left or right. For example, if you get a 3, you could move (up, up, right), (down, down, left), (up, up, up), (down, right, down) or anything like that. Invalid moves are (up, right, down), (left, up, right) and similar. In a nutshell, you can move any number of spaces up or down and left or right, but not up and down and left and right.

Navigation

• Continue to learn how to make two cards wrestle against each other.
• Back to information about decks and cards.
• Return to the manual's main page.