Glossary of Terms

**Ability:** An action or effect on a character card. There are three types of abilities.

* **Activated Abilities:** These are abilities which are activated by the card's owner by paying it’s cost.
* **Triggered Abilities:** These are abilities which are triggered when a given condition is met. Triggered abilities **cannot be interrupted by swift cards.**
* **Passive Abilities:** These are abilities which have a **persistent, passive effect** on the play of the game.

**Available RAM:** The amount of RAM the player currently has in play which is not **committed** to running persistent cards.

**Battle Stage:** The stage of a players turn where they declare their attackers, blockers, and battle characters against their oponents.

**Blitz:** A passive ability which allows a character to deal its damage in battle before all non-blitz characters. A more detailed

**Character:** Cards that can battle and use abilities for a player.

**Committed RAM:** RAM which has been committed to a persistent card

**Counter:** A **swift** action which is able to interrupt another card being played and remove it from the **order of operations,** preventing it from ever coming into play.

**Cyberpsychosis:** A mechanic that represents the mental strain of having too much cyberware installed. Each cyberware card has a psychosis value, and if a character's total psychosis value exceeds its defense, it becomes psychotic. Psychotic characters must perform a psychosis check each attack stage and will attack their controller if they fail the check.

**Cyberware:** Cybernetic equipment which can be attached to a character via their cyberware slots to give them increased stats or special abilities.

**Disabled:** Some cards have the ability to disable another card. When this happens, the disabled card is turned upside down and it cannot use abilities, attack, or block. When the disable effect has ended, the card is turned right side up again and returns to normal.

**Draw:** The action of taking a card from your deck and putting it into your hand. Each player draws two cards every turn during their maintenance step unless a card states otherwise.

**Duel:** An ability that allows a character to directly exchange damage with another character in play as though they were in combat.

**Environment:** Cards which change the virtual environment in which the game is being played. Environment generally affect all players equally. Only one environment card can be in play at a time. If a new environment is played then it replaces the previous one and the old environment is placed into its owners recycle bin.

**.EXE:** Programs with a one time effect that can be played during a players main or secondary stages.

**Final Stage:** The last stage of a players turn where all damage is removed from characters, all effects which say until end of turn end, and the turn is passed to the next player.

**Hand:** The cards a player is currently holding. Cards held in a player's hand may be played if the player chooses to.

**Interrupt:** A swift action which is able to interrupt another action. Interrupts are added to the order of operations above the action they are interrupting.

**Main Deck:** A collection of cards used to play the game. Players may create their own decks from the card in their collection. Decks must contain 60 cards and cannot contain more than 4 of any given card.

**Mainframe:** The player's embedded computer system which is used to play cards. Players can attach RAM to their mainframe in order to play cards. Program cards such as trojans and protocols can be attached to a player's mainframe to achieve various effects in the game.

**Maintenance Stage:** The stage of a player’s turn where card effects take place, they perform a stability check, they draw from their main or RAM deck, and they refresh their RAM, characters, and abilities.

**Overrun:** A passive ability which causes an attacking character who is blocked to deal any additional damage greater than the defense of the blocking character(s) directly to the blocking player's bioframe health.

**Persistent:** Cards that stay in play until removed. All characters are persistent as well as cyberware, and some program cards

**Primary Stage:** The main stage of a players turn where they can deploy characters, programs, cyberware, or environments.

**Program:** A card which is played to create an effect in the game. There are five types of program cards.

* **EXE**
* **Scripts**
* **Drugs**
* **Trojans**
* **Protocols**

**RAM:** Cards which can be attached to the player's mainframe and run to play characters, cyberware, or programs.u

**RAM Deck:** A deck which contains all of a players RAM cards.

**Recycle Bin:** A stack of cards next to the deck where cards which have been played or destroyed are placed. Characters, cyberware, or programs which have been destroyed go into the recycle bin. .EXE and script files go into the recycle bin after they have been played.

**Refresh:** To turn a card which has been run **90 degrees counterclockwise** to indicate that it is now available to attack, block, or activate abilities.

**Run:** To turn a card **90 degrees clockwise** to indicate that it has been used for the turn. Characters who are declared as attackers are run. Some character abilities require the player to run them to activate the ability. Characters which are currently run cannot be used to block or use abilities.

**Scripts:** A type of program which is **swift** and has a one time effect. Scripts can generally be played at most times in the game.

**Secondary Stage:** A second stage of a players turn where they can deploy characters, programs, cyberware, or environments in the same way they would in their primary stage.

**Tether:** A mechanic that allows a character to be attached to another character, cyberware, or program card. When a character is tethered, it gains the abilities of the card it is attached to and any modifiers to its stats. If the card it is tethered to is destroyed, the character and tether remain in play.

**Trojans:** A type of program which is played face down for 4TB of RAM during a player's **main** or **secondary** stage and can then be **activated** by the controlling player anytime a **swift action** could be played **after the turn it was played.** (Meaning if it is played on a players turn, they cannot activate it until the next players turn at the earliest.)