General Warning: This post is exceeding geeky: proceed at your own risk.
One of my favored pastimes in my undergrad years was hanging out with Pavlov and his Magic Decks. Magic is a collectible card game developed by a mathematics professor. Based on a slightly complex set of rules, it allows players to face off with a controlled, but variable set of resources and combine strategy, luck, and bluffing to subdue their opponent. Its lots of fun to come up with new decks and ideas for existing cards, and a great way to hang out with friends and pass the time.
Unfortunately for us poor college students, gathering a significant number of cards was expensive. So, for the most part, we all used Pavlov's colossal library.
Since Sharon and I have acquired jobs, we started acquiring Magic cards on Ebay: 1000's of used cards are available very cheaply in bulk. We've enjoyed playing with each other and friends, and generally devising new decks and strategies. However, Magic has always required physical proximity in order to be played, something all too often not available due to our travels and jobs.
Last week a friend introduced me to a computer program that allows people to easily play Magic on the Internet. It is free, and legal. Know as Apprentice, it acts much like a virtual table on to which we can drop our cards and track game state. It enforces no rules, and its very much like simply meeting a friend with decks in hand. Naturally, you aren't restricted to cards you own in real life.
While I could yammer about its pros and cons, I would rather give some basic instructions on getting it set up. They are below ye fold!
Also, they end with a good old quote (yes, I'm trying to get my fuzzy friends to scan it).
1) Download it here.
2) Update it decks with this. Be sure to read the readme file, not all files go in the same place.
3) Unless you are a computer guru who can set up port forwarding in your firewall, you will want to use a VPN, or virtual private network, to play with us. Go here to get Hamachi.
4) Leave me a comment or AIM or email me, and I'll get you our little network name and password.
5) Start up Apprentice, enter some decks, and get playing!
I also strongly advise you pick up a copy of Skype, a Voice over IP program. It makes chatting and playing much easier.
For card searching and deck building, use the official Gatherer.
And finally, an appropriate quote from the little book.
"Scholl and I were very happy together." - Toad
"Then I got married and things got much better." - Toad