Behind

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Behind
Game data
author Michael Palm ,
Sebastian Jakob
graphic Eckhardt Freytag ,
Volkan Baga ,
Franz Vohwinkel u. a.
publishing company Fishtank ( Ravensburger )
Publishing year 2003
Art Trading card game
Teammates 2 to 5
Duration unknown
Age 14 years and older

Awards

German role-playing game prize : Trading card game 2003: 4th place
German role-playing game prize : Trading card game 2004: 4th place

Behind is a trading card game by Michael Palm and Sebastian Jakob that was released in 2003 by Fishtank, a Ravensburger games brand . In 2003 and 2004 the game reached fourth place in the German Role Playing Prize in the category of trading card games. In the meantime, however, Behind is no longer distributed by Fishtank, but remains a vital and developing game thanks to a highly active community that is also particularly present on the Internet.

Behind is not a "classic" trading card game , in the style of Magic: The Gathering , but combines elements from trading card games, role play and tabletop to create a very unique gaming experience. Behind is played mainly in scenarios on specially developed game boards.

There are two main artists who provided illustrations for most of the cards: Eckhardt Freytag and Volkan Baga . In addition, also Franz Vohwinkel to call with his drawings for Behind. Several other draftsmen have each contributed individual or a few map illustrations.

Apparitions

Editions

The first edition of Behind was published in 2003 in Germany and shortly afterwards in France . It comprises 299 cards, including 60 characters. The first edition was available in the form of four different starter packs and boosters. The two player starter provided the basis for playing the societies of sisters and vampires. Individual starters were available for werewolves, templars and spirits. The starter packs contained basic equipment made up of the same story cards and characters from the respective society. It also included all the chips for the characters from the first edition, as well as some terrain chips. The single starters also contained a booster. Booster packs contained eleven random cards from the 299 of the first edition, one of which was “rare”, three “unusual” and seven “common”.

2004 followed by the second edition: Reinforcement I . She contributed another 161 story cards, there were no characters included. It was sold as a pure booster edition, the distribution of the rarity levels and the number of cards per booster remained the same as with the first edition.

In 2006 and 2007 a third and a fourth edition were put together. In the absence of a sales force currently working on Behind, these were created through an initiative by the game's fan base. New maps were created and discussed by the players on the Internet, so that a large part of the players was involved in the production.

Additional phenomena

In autumn 2003 the so-called Collectors-Box appeared with five new story cards, five new characters and the associated chips as well as card sleeves and a booklet in a metal box.

Just in time for the 2004 game and thus for the first German championship, which took place in Essen, a scenario pack was published which contained three new double-sided game boards, five new characters and scenarios. The scenario pack also included the first non-character characters by introducing the concept of helpers.

Analogous to the follow-up products of the first two editions, the autumn box 2006 followed in autumn 2006, initiated by the player Benny Donat, better known in the behind community under the pseudonym BBB. As with the Fan Edition, other players, but this time a smaller circle, were involved in the production with ideas and control. The autumn box 2006 delivered five new story cards for two of the societies and two new characters per society.

In addition, promotional cards were given out, but they could not be bought. Some of them were included in the Kartefakt magazine, appeared as a supplement to audio books or as tournament prizes. A game plan with a poster on the back as well as a double-sided game plan was also enclosed with the magazine Kartefakt. Another game plan with a poster was distributed after the second edition was published.

In the meantime, the community has also created and published further game plans in the “Fan Scenario Box”.

The players regularly draw up additional cards that are then distributed to the tournaments.

Game concept

As already mentioned at the beginning, Behind combines the elements of the trading card game, role play and table top game into a single game concept. Here, each player controls a group of game figures , whose actions, controlled by the player through the game mechanisms, make up the essential part of the game.

Goal of the game: The scenario

In contrast to many other games, in Behind there is no general goal that can be achieved in every game. Before starting the game, the players agree on one of many possible scenarios . In the form of the scenario, the exact shape of the playing field (there are different game plans), the goal to be achieved and other specifications are specified. Possible goals are eliminating all opposing characters, occupying a certain zone, transporting something of some kind across the game board or the like. As in role play, all tasks that can be implemented in game mechanisms are possible as a game goal.

In the tournament game, the scenario is always given. However, different scenarios are played over the at least three rounds of a tournament, so that a successful player has to prove his skills at different goals.

Pawns

Play figures, namely characters and helpers, are the fundamentally acting figures in Behind. The main gameplay is the actions of the characters controlled by the respective players. Each player controls his own group of characters, which he can put together from a given set. As a measure of usefulness, each pawn is assigned a character point value. The sum of the character points of all characters of a player may not exceed an upper limit, which guarantees fair, equally strong lineups. In tournaments this limit is 35 character points. The following components are available for each character:

  • Pawn card
  • Pawn chip

In addition to the character points, all other characteristics of the character are named on the character card. The game piece chip is used to determine the position of the game piece on the playing field and its direction of view.

Behind knows two different types of pawns, namely characters and helpers. Characters are to a certain extent the backbone of the group, if a player no longer has any characters, the game is over for him. Each character belongs to one of five rival societies and only characters from the same society can be in a line-up. Helpers, on the other hand, can usually join several companies; they do not have to appear in every list. The game is also not over for a player if he no longer controls any helpers.

Action cards

In addition to the pawn cards, there are action cards. They make up the majority of Behind's card supply. Like game pieces, action cards can only be used by certain societies. The deck consists of at least 50 action cards, each card can appear up to three times. Some cards have the attribute legendary , they may only be contained once in the deck. The deck may only contain cards that are usable for the chosen company of a player.

The face-down pile of unused action cards is called replenishment, and at the beginning of each turn the player usually has five action cards in hand. Used action cards are put on the discard pile, which behind is called retreat. Each player has three actions per turn, which he denies by using action cards. You can either use an ability of a pawn, fight a fight, move pawns or play cards for an effect. The action cards are used in three ways:

  • In battles and for the use of abilities, cards that are revealed by the supply have the function of a die. For this purpose, each action card has a number between zero and nine printed on it at the top left, the so-called fate number.
  • If a card is used for movement, the movement bar printed on the left is placed next to a pawn chip and this is shifted by the length of this bar.
  • Effects that can be used are printed on the action cards. A distinction is made between permanent cards that remain on the table and cards that are only used once and then immediately withdraw. A special form are the so-called moments, which are only used once, but can also be played in an opponent's turn. The actions used for this are deducted from the player on his next turn.

A special form of the effect of a card are so-called additions , which do not come into force by playing the card, but only by using its fate number. Additives can have both positive and negative effects.

With the help of a suitable combination of using card effects and abilities, moving and fighting, the scenario must now be fulfilled before the opponent does it.

In order to avoid overpowering action cards, a largely equal sum of movement, fate number and a classification of the card effect was used. This ensures that every player has to find his optimal combination of cards for long movements, cards with high fate numbers for fights and trials as well as meaningful effects, because the stronger the effect of a card, the less remains for fate number and movement. Cards with no effect or even with a negative addition belong to the specified card set. These would not make sense in a conventional trading card game. Within the game mechanism of Behind, however, such cards can be used, as they are characterized by high numbers of fate or great strength of movement.

The world of Behind

The background world of Behind roughly corresponds to our world today. However, there are some hidden things that are introduced "behind the scenes" (ie "behind the scenes"), which are the main theme of the game Behind. These are five secret societies with different goals and different characteristics, which, hidden from humanity, fight for supremacy and the achievement of their goals. Each of these societies has different advantages in the game, depending on their background. The five companies are:

The sisterhood

The sisters have long roots in various women's societies in human history. Its essential aspects are cohesion and protection as well as premonitions by a force known as clairvoyance, which allows a glimpse into the future. Therefore there are female seers and female warriors in the game. The sisterhood has so-called circles as a substructure, namely the southern, northern, eastern and western circles. The protection of humanity plays a major role for them. In the game they are symbolized by the color orange and a stylized eye with long eyelashes.

The Order of the Knights Templar

Usually referred to as the Templar for short, this society is the second human secret society in the world of Behind. The Templars stand in the tradition of the medieval order of knights and have as essential characteristics an accumulated wealth and their faith. Chaplains form their spiritual guides, the majority of the Templars are knights. They are divided into boxes, which have simple numbering. As for the sisters, one of their motives is to protect humanity. Their identification color in the game is purple, their symbol is a paw cross in a circle.

Werewolves

Werewolf society is committed to protecting nature in its wild form. They are connected to animals and have nature and Indian shamanistic traits. Its main characteristics are the ability to transform into a hybrid of human and beast, as well as its supernatural self-healing. Both of these make them dangerous fighters. Shamans speak the magic of the werewolves and are more likely to support, while the guardians are the actual fighters. There are three tribes of werewolves in Behind, the dark rat tribe, the twin crow tribe, and the red moon tribe. The color of the werewolves is green and their symbol is a howling wolf head in a circle.

Vampires

Vampires are hostile to humanity, but also superior. In the game Behind, they are created as immortal vampires, which also speaks of the origins of the individual vampires from different eras. Their strengths are their regenerative and manipulative abilities, with which they can command other beings. Masters among them are the old, experienced vampires, while the younger ones are kept as students. The Behind-Vampires come from three lines, which are located in the cities of Milan, Cologne and Budapest. The identification color of the vampires is blue, their symbol is an ankh in a circle.

Ghosts

Most strange is the company of ghosts. These figures, some of which can be identified as restless spirits of dead people, and some of them totally strange and peculiar, can walk through walls, freeze beings in horror and simply swirl matter away. And that is exactly what their aim is to destroy the matter that they hold onto. Extensive alien effects emanate from the spirits, which testify to their goal, the destruction of all materiality. There are ghosts and poltergeists among the ghosts; there is no further subdivision of society. The color of the spirits is gray and they are symbolized by a vortex in a circle.

All the strengths, weaknesses and goals of the societies mentioned are also included in the game by translating them into game mechanisms. In the game, groups of the same company can compete against each other, but for team games, the socialization of a player and his cards is important, because there are arch animosities in the background story, which also make an alliance impossible in the game.

Tournaments

Private tournaments / official tournaments

Behind tournaments are generally held as privately organized tournaments. The possibility of requesting a prize package as an organizer for tournaments was first offered by Fishtank and later by the community. However, private tournaments could be registered for the official ranking. The participants for the German championship resulted from this ranking. There were also direct qualification tournaments with which players could qualify for the German championship who would not make it through the ranking. The ranking was based on the Elo system. Since 2006 all players who come to the championships can take part. A qualification is no longer required.

German championship

The first German Behind Championship took place in 2004 at the international game fair "Spiel 2004" in Essen . The second German Behind Championship took place on October 29th and 30th, 2005 on the Saarland game days in Eppelborn . For the first time, team championships were held here. On September 23rd and 24th, 2006 the third German Behind Championship was held in Braunschweig . The fourth German championships took place at FeenCon 2007 in Bonn / Bad Godesberg. The fifth German championships took place on July 26th and 27th, 2008 in Berlin. In 2009 the championship took place in Hanover, 2010 and 2011 in Berlin. The German Championship 2012 was held from 7th to 8th July in Rheine.

Another championship was held for the tenth anniversary in 2013. The venue was Bietigheim (Baden) near Karlsruhe , the games were played on August 3rd and 4th, 2013. Twelve players took part in the individual championship on Saturday, the team competition was held with five teams of two players each.

The 2014 German Championships took place in Erlangen.

Community

Despite no longer being commercially available, Behind enjoys great popularity among all age groups and an active online community .

In the community and tournament scene, the online community has played a very strong role right from the start. On the one hand, there is often a strong identification with one of the game companies, to which the appearance in the forum and, in some cases, the actual appearance at tournaments are also tailored. A fairly strong identification with the chosen nickname within the online community, characterized by role-playing games, is also common. Thus most of the players are known to the rest of the player base primarily in the form of their nicknames, as can also be seen from the naming of individual players in this article.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Behind at drosi.de

Web links