Earthborne Rangers Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Earthborne Rangers, a cooperative card game published by Earthborne Games. In Earthborne Rangers, players are building out a ranger and exploring the valley throughout a campaign.

The open-world video game genre has exploded in popularity since it first appeared in the 80s. I could name tons of options in the genre, but chances are you know what I’m talking about. So it should come as no surprise that tabletop games are keen to ape this concept. Giving the players the option to do whatever they want, whenever they want sounds like a win all around, right?

That’s what Earthborne Games thinks with their new exploration card game Earthborne Rangers. This campaign-style game will have you take your ranger (or team of rangers) on adventures throughout the valley to help its residents.

You begin Earthborne Rangers by building out your basic deck. Each ranger has a class, 4 attributes (Awareness, Focus, Spirit, and Fitness), and cards based around these (items, abilities, etc..). Then you pop open the campaign book, read the first entry and you are on your way.

The campaign is played over a series of days, with each game session taking one “day”. The basic turn structure will have you first drawing a card from the path deck. This is how you interact with the world. Inside you might find a monster hunting its prey, an inhabitant of the valley that needs help, or maybe just an obstacle, say a rockslide, that’s hindering your progress. After that, the rangers get to take their actions.

On your turn, you can either play a card or perform a test. Playing a card is simple, and requires you to discard one or more other cards as payment. Some are one time events, while many others are gear cards that will give you bonuses