The Deep Forest

The re-imagining of The Quiet Year by Avery Alder and Mark Diaz Truman.

It's the time between cons and I stopped by Story Games Seattle to play some games. I didn't get a spot at the Polaris table, but someone was running a game of The Deep Forest, so I was ALL about that. 

I've been a long, long fan of Avery's The Quiet Year, so a chance to play this new take on the the game was too good. 

Our group went with a more standard fantasy set up in some sort of northern taiga.

Something that immediately struck out to me starting this game was the lack of scarcities.  It was replaced with traditions and taboos. One area of the map was to be considered dangerous and off limits at the start.

Our monsters were yetis in some hills, some intelligent wolves in a timber forest, and some mammoth-people (minotaurs but with mammoth heads). 

We introduced a few more monsters as the game progressed, a spirit elk, and some ancient spirits, but ultimately we never felt like a community, We felt disjointed.

The game doesn't allow for discussions like TQY does. It felt like there were just multiple stories going on that didn't feel connected. We had nothing to do but explore, which is different than The Quiet Year, where fixing your scarcities is always a good fallback strategy for what to do on your turn.

I would gladly play this game again, but given the choice between it and The Quiet Year, I think I'd rather play the later. The Deep Forest seems to have taken away some of the mechanics of The Quiet Year that make it feel so good to play. I think the aim was to allow for players to interact more as monsters in the game, but it didn't click for me. 

If you've played The Deep Forest or even The Quiet Year, I'd like to hear your thoughts on your experiences!