Havic: The Bothering

Havic: The Bothering is an unofficial parody card set created by PGI Limited in 1998. Havic was mentioned in InQuest #38.

The setting of the game is a modern day college campus, and the characters and cards represent party-goers. The game plays much like Magic: The Gathering, but uses only two resources - beer and cigarettes. The card artwork is simple and cartoonish, but are laid out in the same way as Magic cards.

History
PGI Limited, maker of Havic, was banned from attending GenCon in July 1998, when the major event sponsor - Wizards of the Coast - expressed concern over the parody's presence. Peter Gray of PGI Limited said in an open letter:

Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 09:47:50 -0400 (EDT) From: havic@erols.com Subject: [none] Dear HAVIC Fan: PGI Limited, maker of HAVIC The bothering, has been banned from attending GenCon. PGI Limited is extremely disturbed by this decision. GenCon was designed support the ENTIRE gaming community. Conventions allow manufacturers and distributors to get together to form mutually beneficial relationships. To single out and ban one particular manufacturer from participating is nothing less than a disgraceful display of unfair competition. This kind of injustice must not be tolerated by the gaming community. We can not allow Wizards of the Coast to have the power to decide what games live and die. Please e-mail Wizards of the Coast to let them know how you feel and don't forget to CC PGI Limited so we can stand behind you. Feel free to contact PGI Limited with any comments you may have. Sincerely, Peter Gray PGI Limited HAVIC6@aol.com

Game play
The rules were printed on the front and back of a single card inserted into the starters.

Being an obvious parody of Magic, the rules are very similar. By using the beer and cigarette resources, players recruit peons, create effects, and use items to reduce the "sanity" points of the opponent from 21 to zero. Some game terms were changed to be different from Magic. For example, tapped cards were called "whacked" and could later be "unwhacked"

Players were instructed to expressly not "construct "their own library of a predetermined number of game components by examining and selecting [the] game components from [a] reservoir of game components" or you may infringe on U.S. Patent No. 5,662,332 to Garfield."

Product information
The first release of the game, known as Skool Daze, was available only in 60 card starter decks; there were no boosters. Ten starters were packaged in each simple shrink-wrapped box.

A planned second set called Spring Break was announced but never released. That set would have been sold as boosters.

Vegan promo
Vegan (card #98) appears on many card lists of the set, but was not inserted into packs as normal. It is unknown if the card was ever even printed. Peter Gray, and all three key artists (Sist-Airs, Norton, and Vinyl Vineshtein) have been unable to confirm its existence.

According to InQuest staff, PGI approached the magazine to provide it as a free insert. Because of the questionable legal status of the card game due to possible patent or trademark infringement, InQuest did not pursue this.