Gwent was a surprising addition to Witcher 3; I wasn't that crazy about the mini-games (dice-poker, etc) in Witchers 1 and 2, but I do love me some Gwent. It seemed a shame that I could only play it on the computer. Wouldn't it be nice if I had my own real-life set of Gwent cards?

So yeah, I went ahead and did it. I made my own Gwent Collectible Card Game.

This isn't the first Gwent deck posted to the Internet but it does seem to be the first one designed as a complete game. Given that they've let the others slide under their radar I hope CD Projekt Red and GOG don't get mad about this one either (if there is, let me know and I'll take everything down).

It took a little doing getting all the art-work from the game (stupidly, I didn't check to see if someone had done all the work before me). I used screenshots rather than pull the art from the resource files simply because I couldn't find complete cards in the latter; apparently the computer game assembles all the cards from its various bits'n'pieces whenever it displays them on screen. Anyway, with screenshots I got the assembled package so it was just easier than messing about with the data-files directly. Some quick cropping and editing and clean-up, and I had a collection of 207 cards. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a high-resolution BACK for the cards, so those are a bit pixelated, but it's the portraits on the front that are the real draw of the game anyway ;-)

Next, I wrote a rulebook for the game. I tried to keep as true to the computer version as I could, but obviously there had to be some changes. The biggest change is that the "real life" Gwent Deck only needs 10 Unit cards per faction, rather than 22. This change was made to speed up the gameplay. Other changes are what happens when you win a battle (rather than winning money, you randomly select a card from your opponent's collection), and victory conditions for winning the game (you lose if you don't have any factions with 10 unit cards). For those familiar with Gwent from the computer game, it should be very easy to get into the game but I think that even newcomers would have no difficulty starting a battle. The rules also detail what all the special abilities do and the specific values and abilities of each card so it might even be a useful resource for people who play the computer game.

I threw in a cleaned-up image of the "Battlefield", although the scale isn't quite right with the cards. I consider it more of a guide as to how arrange the cards anyway.

The whole set is collected in a 40MB PDF. The cards alone take up 52 pages (26 pages of 8 cards a page for the front of the cards, alternating with another 26 pages with card backs). You print out these pages and then cut out the cards individually to get your deck. I'm not sure about the legality of taking these to a print-shop so they do the job for you, but in any event this is intended only for personal use.

This is a work of love made by a dedicated fan (me!). I in no way mean to challenge CD Projekt Red's rights to Gwent, or the Witcher 3 or anything like that. Its not intended for commercial gain; it was just a fun project and I share it with other Witcher 3 fans so they can share the fun. Obviously the name "Gwent", the rules, all the artwork etc. remains the property of CD Projekt Red. It's all used without permission but I hope they forgive me. If they don't, I'll gladly pull the file back down (but I'd be even more glad if they used this as a basis for a "game goodie" for Witcher 3 owners on GOG :-)

Anyway, enough with the preliminaries. If you are interested in seeing the end-product, here it is:
Fan-made Gwent Collectible Card Game

(Additional)
Please don't distribute or make it available for download anywhere else. If you want to share it with a friend, please point them to this post. This is really intended for Witcher 3 fans/owners and not intended for general distribution. Hopefully that will keep CD Projekt Red on our side. Thanks

Have fun!