Designer(s) | Mike Tinney, Stephan Wieck |
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Publisher(s) | White Wolf, FRPG |
Players | 2+ |
Age range | 10+ due to some violent content, may not be suitable for some children. |
Setup time | build a deck= 20-40 minutes. Actual physical setup, less than 2 minutes. |
Playing time | 30 minutes for 2 player. Add roughly 15 minutes to time for each additional player. |
Random chance | low. Some deck types are more affected by random draws than others. |
Skill(s) required | Card playing |
Rage is a collectible card game originally published by White Wolf in 1995 based on the roleplaying game, Werewolf: The Apocalypse. The game is based around packs of werewolves battling each other and various evil monsters while trying to save the world.
Rage had five sets of cards:
The game was discontinued by White Wolf after Legacy and the license sold to Five Rings Publishing Group (FRPG).
FRPG produced a new version of the game with the same card backs and set in the same world, but with completely different mechanics making it incompatible with the first version of the game. The second version of the game had seven card sets. The first 6 were numbered and released once a month. They were known as Phase 1 through 6. The final set, Equinox, combined together three of the smaller numbered sets (7-9) into one larger set.
FRPG was bought out by Wizards of the Coast (the makers of Magic: The Gathering), who were in turn bought out by Hasbro. Hasbro discontinued many of the games it had acquired in the take over, including Rage. The license for the game lapsed back to White Wolf.
Azrael Productions, who produced an online magazine, acquired permission from White Wolf to provide tournament support for both versions of Rage. However, Azrael was unable to acquire the license to bring Rage back into print. While under Azrael's care, there were two notable developments. The first version of Rage came to be called "Rage: Apocalypse" and the second version "Rage: Tribal War" so people would not be confused as to which version people were talking about.
Azrael Productions also assembled a group of dedicated fans to start designing new cards for the game. They started playtesting these cards before Azrael eventually abandoned the project. Azrael gave up rights to the partially tested cards, leaving the path clear for the playtesters to produce fan-made sets of cards.
The first set of these fan made cards, Intermezzo, was released in 2003. A total of five fan made sets for Rage: Apocalypse (Intermezzo, Periphery, Gauntlet, and Coda. They are collectively known as the New England Block. War Council is the fifth set and starts the Ahadi block.) and two for Tribal War (Web of Deceit and Christmas Present '04) have been released since then. The cards are hosted on the official Rage site, River Von, but are considered legitimate by White Wolf and are allowed in regular tournaments and for use in online play. They are not hosted on the main White Wolf server due to copyright issues with the artwork.