The Hand of Fate

The Omen deck represents the sound of orc drums in the cavern depths, the clatter of hooves on cobblestone in pursuit, the spidery claws grasping at your cloak in the tangled wood. It is the driving pressure that keeps the game exciting and grows ever more dangerous the longer you take. At any moment, the orcs might appear, the horse might heave into view, or the claws might snap the cloak tight against your throat.

The Omen deck is the beating heart of the game. The machinations of the gamemaster. The hand of fate. The pressure that drives the feeling of panic that grips the player. And the thrill of success when they pull off a win despite a pile of these cards desperately seeking to crash the game in defeat.

The first time I played Crossfire, the interplay of the different colors of damage and how you weave them together across a group of players to defeat a given card was wonderful. But the Crossfire deck itself (later called the Dragonfire Deck, in Dragonfire, and now the Omen Deck in Runefire) captivated me. It wasn’t that it was an AI-style deck (though it is), or that it evoked universe flavor (which it does), or that it applied pressure to the game in the best ways to evoke sitting at a TTRPG table with a good gamemaster (appreciated in any game). It's that it did all of that, and more.

Every round a new Omen card is revealed. The flavor text is read to the table, which can immediately set the tone like a GM setting a new scene. Even though I’ve read this card many times, as I’m writing this blog I looked again at that Timebomb card above (which can be brutally hard if it goes off), and laughed out loud at the flavor text. Wonderfully irreverent as Shadowrun usually is. Despite the danger of that card, the table’s usually laughing as the wise cracking bomb defuser goes to work.

Then the rules are applied. But the effects are varied and often as enjoyable as they are challenging. The Goblin Uprising above, for example, just throws out a few tokens; usually relatively easy to clear out. 

However, this card really captures the intensity of the pressure that can be applied. Because at the end of every round, the previously revealed Omen card is placed in the discard, increasing the Omen Level count by 1, and then a new card is revealed, read and applied, and the game continues. As such, the longer it takes to complete a game, the more dangerous those little goblin tokens become. By Omen Level 9, you’re suddenly dealing with a handful of encounter tokens that take 3 damage to defeat and if they are not cleared, come at a character with an Attack Strength of 3…absolutely brutal!

However, remember, every card comes at you from a different angle. Take, for example, Dangerous Waters above. On the surface, this card is very rough. It has ended numerous games I’ve played. 

However, in reality, this card is nearly a 50/50 split of good/bad. Because, if the party manages to actually end the Scene by defeating all of the encounters facing players, then the revealed Omen Card is buried, not placed in the discard. So the Omen Level doesn’t increase. More importantly, for this card, meaning those health boosts are nothing but a boon, as they’re kept! Recognizing when an Omen card can be manipulated from bad to good by the players is one of the most enjoyable aspects of this deck and game.

Another style of card is one that’s nearly pure flavor. When I was co-designing Dragonfire, I came up with this design and I absolutely still love it, as it conjures the image of a hag 
slapping curses left, right and center. A Grimm’s Tale brought straight into Dragonfire. I remember having to fight for it through our design team, because it’s complicated. And fiddly. And it is. But it never ceases to be fun and brings the requisite flavor I wanted. Which is why it saw publication and I knew it had to appear in Runefire as well.

I could go on and on about the Omen cards  and how they bring the joy and pain and the driving pressure that makes you desperate to win. In fact, in all the decades of my game play, and all the hundreds and hundreds of games I’ve played, I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced a game that is so effective at convincing you you’ve lost the game. And yet, if you dig deep and be the heroes the game needs, you’ll more often than not pull off a win. And it’ll be all the sweeter for it!

See ya next time!

Randall