With the recent delivery of Earthborne Rangers, I encountered a "strange issue" I wouldn't think I'd have. As with lcg (and tcg/ccg/...) the rulebook isn't "complete", it's just a set of general turn structure and keywords and roughly described principles. Of course I'm no stranger to that, I do own Lord of the Rings lcg. So why did it catch me by surprise?
With LotR lcg, I used to mostly netdeck and in the past 5 years I used only the recommended decks in the saga rulebooks. This helped me just go through the deck and find the synergies, but I didn't really need to think about synergies while building a deck and going through thousands of cards. Over time it just became about "how to best play this deck" instead of "let's see what this game does and try to build what I find the most fun".
Since Earthborne Rangers is a campaign game though and you're building a deck for the "long run", I found myself struggling to see what I should use to balance my deck (since I'm playing with just a single ranger) as opposed to "oh this sounds cool". Why? Because I have no idea about the inner workings of the game. Most of the rules or how the game plays aren't actually in the rulebook, but on the cards themselves as you encounter them. And since it's a campaign, looking through and reading those cards didn't seem like the best idea. While the game set out to make the deck construction easier, there's still a ton of choices. You're choosing 1 of 12 aspects (1 of 9 actually for single ranger, since they recommend fitness at least 2), then 4 personalities out of 12, then 1 of 4 background sets, 5 of 9 cards in your chosen set, then 1 of 4 specialties, 5 of 14 cards in your chosen specialty. It sounded way more simple on paper, but in reality there are cards that go together well, some cards you might need due to the way some quests work, some cards are unavailable based on your chosen aspect and so on. In the end I spent a copious amount of time just trying to work this out.
The game itself is good, there's nothing wrong with it. But I got used so much to understanding a game just from reading the rules that I find myself frozen when I have to decide based on a very limited knowledge and no way to acquire said knowledge cause it's a campaign with part of the enjoyment being discovery. They have a prologue that takes you through one or two of the decks you might encounter, but in a very limited capability, which didn't really help much. I guess I'm a control freak 😆
But it got me thinking maybe these text heavy card games aren't meant for me. I like LotR lcg, but I use it in very limited capability (using preconstructed decks), trusting that someone else did the research of the inner workings of the game before me and thus I can jump in and figure it out as I go. And I like parts of Earthborne Rangers, but it sure can be frustrating to jump into the unknown and make decisions for up to 30 sessions in advance. The amount of text is a hurdle also, cause I can't just scan my table/hand and know what I have, I have to read the cards still. Which makes sessions really really really long.
Anyway, just wanted to share on the path to discovery. Earthborne Rangers was a "test" (expensive one 😄), because I loved the theme, the sustainability, the world coming alive as you play and lack of combat focus... and put to the test if I can get past the things I dislike like longer campaign and lots of narrative. The results so far are in a limbo.
Have you managed by now to overcome your initial disappointment?
Yes, this game asks "who do you want to be" at the beginning. It's not about deck optimization first and foremost. You'll see how to survive later.
But cut yourself some slack. If after a few plays you find some cards don't work for you, or some skills are underdeveloped, just swap stuff out. Enjoyment comes first.