Roleplaying games and collectible card games (RPGs and CCGs) are very different, but I’ve enjoyed both in my day. Roleplaying games are a great way to hang out with friends and pretend to be Awesome for a while. CCGs have a fascinating triple layer of strategy: Understand the environment that the game is in, understand your deck as you construct it, and understand the game as you play it. They can be such an endless source of fascination that I forgive them the high price tag.

A couple of years ago, they were demoing a game at Marcon called Dragon Storm. It’s a combination of an RPG and a CCG. You buy cards to make a deck that represents your character; these cards are used to give you your abilities during the RPG session. Cards have a point value, and the total point value isn’t allowed to exceed a certain amount (based on the campaign or character level or whatever) so in theory there’s balance.

I was interested and maybe tired or drunk or something, so I signed up for the game. I had to buy the starter myself, although the GM offered to buy it back afterward.

Tip: If anyone tries to get you to try a CCG and doesn’t give you a free demo deck, run. Don’t waste your money. You will never find enough people to play the game to make it interesting.

As it turns out, the game is a nightmare as both a CCG and an RPG. Every cynical and heavy-handed trick to try to get players to buy more cards is used. Common cards aren’t useful; they’re boring abilities and junk objects like clubs. Who the hell wants a club? The points system isn’t properly used for balance. To make matters even worse, if you kill a monster that was using an item, you can take the item… if you own the card that represents it. Otherwise, so sorry, it was broken during the fight.

To make matters even worse, enemies, NPCs, etc. are also represented by cards—yes, there’s GM packs to buy as well. And you’re discouraged from using them without the cards—there’s no book that lists the enemies in the world independent of whatever cards you may have.

As for the RPG aspect, the layout of the cards encourages the most pedantic, least creative roleplay imaginable. Peasant Garb is a card, believe it or not, without which you will evidently be nekkid, and “a shape shifter changing form can remove this garb as a 0/F independent action.” I don’t remember what the hell a 0/F independent action is, but pants are one of the mundane details of my life that I just don’t feel I should have to deal with in an RPG, shapeshifter or no. And it reduces your carrying capacity for other objects. Want to do something, anything? You better have a card for it, or no go. Want a flask? You can’t get ye flask unless you have the card for it.

Want more? It’s easy to pick up a D&D game at a convention. If the game you want to play in isn’t for first-level characters, you just generate a high-level character, pick some equipment, and go. Evidently in the Dragon Storm culture this is frowned upon; you’re supposed to take your character around with you from con to con, getting more experience (and buying more cards) with each game you play.

(Yes, I sold the deck back.)