Free Web Hosting Provider - Web Hosting - E-commerce - High Speed Internet - Free Web Page
Search the Web

The booster packs were distinctive because they were actually stiff paper envelopes, not industry-standard "wax packs." I ended up saving a few and giving them to my children for storing their trading cards. They still scatter the cards around, but at least they have somewhere to put them when the mood strikes.

The game featured three main groups of characters: Forces of Light, Forces of Darkness, and Forces of Earth and Beyond. A standard "waste the other player" game would normally use all three types in a single deck. Enhancement cards that gave characters additional abilities or otherwise changed things in the player's favor rounded out the set.

Most character cards could have a single enhancement card attached. A few of the less powerful characters made up for their relative weakness by being able to use two enhancements at a time. Also, many of the enhancements were played without attaching them to a character. These would generally cancel other enhancements, augment a character card for one action only, or affect the play environment somehow.

Deck size wasn't specified, other than that the players had to agree on how many cards each would have in their deck. No more than one of each character card was allowed in a deck, and no more than three of any given enhancement card. This would prevent someone from loading a deck with what he perceived as the best cards.

Players could also opt for mission-oriented games. Some of the cards had specific missions on them instead of characters or enhancements. Some of the missions required specific character types (one player must have at least three Forces of Light characters, for example), others could use any type. The players would agree on a number of missions. Each would then select a number of characters equal to the total required for all the missions. Each player also got a certain number of enhancement cards, based on the characters chosen. The missions were worth a certain number of points, and high points won the match. In case of a tie, all the surviving character and enhancement cards would fight it out until one player lost.

(Man, this is getting long-winded.)

Unfortunately, I never found another player. Most game shops didn't carry it for long, either, suggesting that I was one of the relatively few people buying the game.

This may be due to the complexity of the game. Each character has three separate stats that must be tracked, and each stat may have some sort of defense. In a decent battle or mission, a player could be tracking five characters at once, at three stats each, until at least one stat for one character hits zero. For a long-time Champions GM, this is run of the mill. For anyone else, ick.

Anyway, thanks to Caliber Comics I finally got a complete set put together in October 1999. For all their faults, they are nice cards, and I'm glad I managed to finish my collection.

NEW! There's actually another non-commercial site about Spawn Powercardz! And I thought I was the only one outside of Caliber Comics itself. The War Room has rules for a different game using them. Check it out!

Text © Patrick Clark 1999-2001
Last updated 25 July 2001
Home