Paizo Publishing is partnering with Mike Selinker and the design team at Lone Shark Games to create a new "collaborative deck-building game" featuring role-playing elements and set in the widely popular Pathfinder universe.

 

The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game will be a cooperative game for one to six players that attempts to recreate the feel of a role-playing game without using any gamemaster.  Each player uses his own deck of cards to represent his character, including abilities and equipment.  Over the course of the game, the player’s deck will evolve, using a mechanic similar to popular deck-building card games.  The players cooperate to defeat a series of “adventures”, each its own deck of cards representing challenges and foes for the characters to confront. 

 

The game will be presented as a series of card sets.  The first set, based on the Rise of the Runelords adventure series, is expected to include over 400 cards, including the "Burnt Offerings" adventure deck and characters to play.  Paizo then plans to support the game with bi-monthly 110 card adventure decks and additional character decks.

 

An early prototype of the game was tested at PaizoCon and Gen Con last year, and Paizo is currently conducting a limited public beta test of the game.  Fans of Pathfinder were invited to apply for the opportunity to test the game and provide feedback on the final design.  Participants will be required to pay the printing costs of the playtest materials, but will be reimbursed with credit good towards Paizo product.  Playtesting is expected to begin in the next few weeks.