Webstock Welly conference and card game!

Those of you who were at WebDU last year will no doubt remember the joys, tears, triumphs and trauma of the Trading Card Game that Kai Koenig and I ran. Well, we're at it again at the fabulous Webstock Wellington!

Here's one of the cards, designed by the fab Ange Vink:

On the insanely remote chance you unavoidably missed WebDU, the lowdown on the game is below.

I'm really looking forward to running the game- it was a blast last time, with attendees racing around haggling and pleading and then falling into an Analysis Paralysis stupor as they tried to max out their hands.

At Webstock there'll be more cards, which gave me a chance to write even more incredibly witty rules and flavour text about a whole group of astonishing speakers (many of whom I've never met, so I may well be burnt at the stake for wandering into taboo personal space...)

Speaking of speakers... is it too fanboi-ish to bring along my copy of Schismatrix Plus for Bruce Sterling to sign? In blood, so I can sequence his DNA on my home-built testing unit? That's not too weird, is it?

Anyway, I hope to see you at Webstock! Come and say hi- I'll be the one called Minty looking a little harried as I debate the semantic meaning of my use of the word 'card' in the rules. :-P

UPDATE: Read about how it went in the Trading Card Game Post-Mortem!

All you need to do is collect a hand of cards and submit them. Each card has a point value, and the highest scoring hand will win cool stuff. Easy, right?

Except... each card also has a rule on it (expertly blurred in this one, but if you really squint... it looks even more blurred.) And those rules provide various ways to increase (and perhaps decrease!) the value of your cards. Furthermore, even rules you don't know about may still apply to your cards!

The best way to discover rules is to get more cards, or else *shock* *horror* talk to your fellow attendees. (For those of you who are programmers, refer to 'social engineering'.)

Trade cards! Haggle! Offer inducements! Swap rule information! Remember, rule knowledge is scoring power! But it also helps to have a good set of cards.