Dragonstorm RPG
The Dragonstorm RPG by Black Dragon Press has a take on gameplay that one doesn’t often find: rather than using a set of hardbound books to convey their rules, DS uses a card-based format. Characters, monsters, treasures, spells; pretty much everything is in the form of cards with stats, text descriptions, and artwork.
The setting for the game is the world of Grandilar, a place of chaos, magic, and strangeness that takes traditional fantasy roleplay and gives it a new twist. In the ancient past of the world, powerful dragons ruled over great enclaves of fantastical creatures, and lorded their power over the humans. Then, one day, a new form of magic grew powerful: necromancy, dark magic that warped its victim and wielders alike, was used to strike down the dragons. Almost all of them died, and the massive use of necromancy created huge storms of twisted magic that reaved the countryside for miles. Empires fell, cities were destroyed, and horrendous beasts roamed the countryside—but the necromancers, now with power beyond what they could previously have hoped for, set up their own ‘empires.’ Over time, they convinced the people of the world that they had destroyed the evil dragons, who had released the ‘dragon storms’ as a terrible weapon upon the humans. Despite their fear of the necromancers, they were grateful for the ‘protection’ of the dark magic wielders, and grew complacent.
However, eventually, new creatures began showing up—the ‘dragon storms’ were a curse, but they brought the blessing of re-awakened blood. Humans, elves, dwarves, and other beings with the dormant blood of the dragons in their veins (who were shapeshifters, and sometimes took mortal mates), would suddenly find themselves altered by the passing of a dragon storm. The old blood would awake, and they would shapeshift for the first time—suddenly monsters, just like those they believed had destroyed their world. They might become werewolves, or gargoyles, or unicorns, or even huge dragons—and they would be forced to flee their old lives or die. And while some shapeshifters are caught by necromancers or killed by the dangers of the wild lands of Grandilar, others have been banding together, forming a group known as the Valarians, and learning their true history—and fighting back.
The players create characters who are usually shapeshifters (though there are rules and cards for humans and orcs as well), and begin their adventures with very little on their side—they may even believe the stories of the necromancers themselves! So, rather than being the heroes and the adventurers, they find themselves the monsters, beasts that their own families fear and hate. They have to be careful if they want to make it, in a world where all the normal folk think the good guys are the bad guys. The concept works out beautifully, and it is a refreshing change from worn fantasy tropes: even though you want to save the villagers and help the downtrodden (hopefully—the game does encourage teamwork and decent morals in the player characters), they won’t be eager to accept your help, and will probably appeal to the necromancers for help!
Beyond that, playing as a shapeshifter in DS makes for some very interesting play experiences that I haven’t found elsewhere; while White Wolf’s World of Darkness let you play as monsters, the Dragonstorm take on them is much more along the lines of high fantasy. Rather than trying to fight ‘the monster within,’ as is the basic premise of most WoD games, DS characters aren’t generally monstrous. Their struggle is one to expose the lies of the necromancers and convince others of the truth. And besides, it’s just way too cool to turn into a giant dragon when the baddies come calling :-)
The system DS uses is very simple: roll 2d6, add bonuses, and try to beat a target that’s either a set number or an opposing roll. Characters have stats printed on their primary Character Card, which are then modified by the other cards they buy, some of which are always active (’Anchors’) and some of which are temporary (’Aces’). It runs smoothly, and generally makes for a fun game. However, this simple system is augmented by the actual presence of the cards.
The basic rules of DS fit on about 3 sheets of double-sided printing. Having special-case rules on the cards saves a lot of space, and prevents you both from needing a book-list of all the special abilities and spells, or needing one to reference when you need to use them. Gameplay is a lot faster this way, especially when it comes to combat, since everything is clearly laid out before you. Also, having the art on the cards provides wonderful flavor to the game, and makes it a much more involved experience. Being able to flip through the small deck of cards that make up your character and see what they and their abilities and items look like often can provide an awful lot of inspiration.
There are, however, a few downsides to this. The one that I consider most primary is that the card-based nature of the game makes it difficult to justify adding new content to the game as house-rules—with traditional book-based games, you can write down rules in the same format as the books, but even if you make stand-in cards for your invented ones, they won’t quite match the rest of them. This is especially problematic when it comes to spells and magic, since it pretty much nixes having official rules for making up spells. Also, while it isn’t as much of a money-sink as Magic: the Gathering, (or even D&D, for those who like to own most of the books) buying packs of cards could get expensive. Lastly, and this is a personal point, while the artwork for the original sets of cards is fantastic and has a very gritty style, some of the more recent cards have a much more out-there, anime style that breaks the flavor of the world for me.
Overall, DS is a great game; it has its issues, but those can be worked around, especially in home-games. It’s an interesting experience. Both the world and the game system are significantly different from most currently available RPGs, and I recommend giving it a shot. The rules and a bunch of example/beta cards are available for free download from their site (link at the top of this article), so check it out!
Blessed be,
~Nathan
