There are two main things that The Quiet Year, by Avery Alder, did to me. First, it introduced me to the concept of ‘map game’, opening my eyes to look beyond just various types of sheets and dice, to a whole variety of physical elements and their role in the game. Second, it has a deck of provocative questions, and most importantly – they’re arranged according to seasons, thus creating a narrative flow.
Venture Forth takes this idea and juxtapose it with the three tiers of play from D&D 4e (also seen in 5e, Adventurer Conqueror King, and others; it’s a natural progression). Instead of playing through one year, slowly discovering the world as a community, you play through a D&D-like campaign, slowly escalating in scale as a party. By answering provocative questions, of course! And there are a lot of those, way more than you’ll need for a single playthrough.
Buy it as a PDF or Print on Demand
The rulebook is available here. The game is also surprisingly available as an Android app! All the thanks for the development go to David Gao.