Most CCGs are basically clones of Magic: the Gathering. This would be fine, except that most of these lack Magic's freedom of play and suitability towards the rules. After all, Star Wars is a great game, but wouldn't it be great if it were easier just to shoot someone instead of making the opponent "lose force" at a battle? The rules just aren't suited for the game, and as a result, Star Wars and many other CCGs suffer. Fortunately, Rage challenges this way of looking at card games with a revolutionary set of rules and dynamics.

First of all, players do not summon/hire/deploy characters in Rage. The player starts the game with his pack already in play. These characters are unique in themselves because they are double-sided. Rage is based on White Wolf's Werewolf RPG, and to represent this, all characters have a breed form (human or wolf, depending on how the werewolf was raised) and a crinos form (the classic "wolf-man"). Players can augment their characters with gifts, events, rites, equipment, and other cards, but the player does not purchase these. In fact, there are no resources (such as mana, force, spice, honor, and so on) to be found anywhere! Instead, all a player needs to play a card is a character in play that meets the requirements listed, such as a specific tribe or auspice.

The improvements don't stop there. Instead of having complicated timing rules, with interrupts, instants, and all that nonsense, cards are considered in the order they are played. No need to unravel batches of effects. If the card was played first, it takes effect first! Simplicity itself.

Players do not have separate turns in Rage, either. All players act at the same time, which is a big help in a game as multiplayer-oriented as it is. In fact, Rage may be the only game on the market where playing with more than 2 people actually improves the game!

This group dynamic is heightened even more with the addition of moots. Players can play moot cards, and then everyone votes on whether it should pass or not. The sheer amount of backstabbing, deal-making, favor-calling, and political trickery in Rage would have put it above 90% of the current market already, but the innovation doesn't stop. Players have two decks, a sept deck (which represents the pack's resources, such as equipment and gifts) and a combat deck (which hold the various combat maneuvers.) That's right, combat is no longer limited to comparing stats. Players play combat cards from their hand for each of their characters in combat. Characters may only play a combat action if it requires their rage statistic or less, making combat more unpredictable. What adds to the chaos is bluffs, where a character can play a card requiring a higher rage than normally allowed, but the bluff only succeeds if the target either bluffed or played nothing.

Finally, winning is nothing short of brilliant in execution. At the beginning of every game a reknown level is set, which limits the number of characters a player starts with and also sets the number of victory points required to win. Victory points are gained either by killing things, or by using rites, gifts, and quests, which makes a political deck a real possibility.

Rage has a few low points, too. The rules are almost incomprehensible as printed in the booklet, so you'll need to find the updated version kept on the web or have someone teach you how to play. The artwork is sometimes below average or (even worse) recycled. Still, these are minor quibbles in a game this good. I could go on all day about the special features of Rage, like the ability for a really good player to tell stories with the cards, the deep background, the ability created by the Wyrm expansion to play the bad guys, and the hilarious flavor text, but then I'd miss a couple games of this excellent card game, and there's no way I'm gonna do that.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)