Once Upon a Time, There was a Card Game named Guardians...

Back in the mid-90s, there was a glut of collectible card games, also called trading card games. Many were quickly-produced, jump-on-the-bandwagon, make-a-quick-buck games, which tried to cash in on the success of Magic: the Gathering.

One game that was better than all that was FPG's Guardians. It was fun to plan, had great artwork and simple rules. And it didn't take itself too seriously. Sadly, I discovered this game right about the time the company decided to discontinue it.

That didn't bother me much, because there was a fan base on usenet and a handful of webpages. In fact, at one point, I had risen in the ranks of geekdom to have been the go-to guy for information if you couldn't find a representative from FPG. (Paging Dave Gentzler! Paging Dave Gentzler!) Folks said that if you stopped by my webpage, you might learn a thing or two. (I'd point you to the webpage, but I really need to take it down as I haven't used that account in many, many years even though I'm still paying for it. But I digress...)

When I posted on usenet, and later on a mailing list, I used to add what I called ".sig cards", homebrew card ideas which might've been serious or silly or possibly related to whatever I was posting. (As an aside, the idea to try to have different funny signatures came from following a Master, the late John M. Ford. If only I could be that good!)

I have recently discovered (as in a half-hour ago) that there is a Guardians blog (which I knew about) which has been taking my ideas and creating cards out of them using artwork from some of the original contributors of the game. He specifically took my cards and wanted to make a set out of them. In fact, he started this past May and just finished, and I discovered it accidentally while looking for something else.

Okay, now this doesn't have much to do with math, other than stuff about Probability and Statistics and Game Theory and the fact that Magic was created by a mathematician, but it's something I'm proud of, and I would like to share it with as many people as I can.

And it's frikkin' cool.

My .sig cards, as imagined by Jackalware.