Thoughts on… Deer Lord
Deer Lord is currently campaigning on Kickstarter, and will be until December 3rd. We were sent a copy of the Print & Play files for the purposes of this review. Bare in mind that any pictures are from the Print & Play and so obviously are not representative of the final product. Enjoy!
Why hello! Welcome to our little review of Deer Lord! Take this drink, you’ll probably want it. Now, I’ll start the review properly in a minute but I first wanted to say what a simply fantastic job we’ve done with this review, truly this week we have quite out done ourselves –
DEER LORD!
Oh bother…
Deer Lord is a simple card game of doing silly things, fooling your friends or more importantly catching them in the act of… doing something! No, I have no idea what is going on with the game’s name either. Obviously it’s some kind of pun on “Dear Lord”, an appropriate exclamation to make upon catching someone with their pants down, as it were (and might well be in a future expansion). Yet where the corvine* connection came from, I can’t possibly comment.
Fortunately we are here to review the game and not the name and I’m pleased to say the game is a lot of fun! Each player gets a hand of cards and their aim is to be the first to empty their hand. There are two types of card; Do Something cards which challenge you to do the thing during the other player’s turns without being caught, and Duel cards in which you challenge another player to some kind of face off. For example, let’s say it’s my turn and I play this card on you
We now have a staring contest! Ready? 3, 2, 1, Go!
Ha! I win. So I get to keep that card in front of me. I could also reveal any Do Something cards I had pulled off since my last go. As we saw at the start, my attempts at self-flattery and speech giving didn’t get through, but on my next go, I could play this!
I’m sure you know why! Of course, when you reveal these cards, the other players must be able to agree that you did do that something. Presenting you with the often hilariously difficult challenge of making your actions sufficiently obvious that people will notice, but not obvious enough that they will challenge you with a “Deer (dear?) Lord!” at the time! If that happens… hold on let me check the rules…
DEER LORD!
Crap!
Ok fine. So being caught forces you to discard that card (since everyone now knows what it is) and draw a new one from the deck. Not really much of a cost, except you now need to figure out how to casually work sniffing your own armpit into the game. Successfully complete a card, or win a duel, and you put that card out in front of you to act as an “extra life”. When you falsely accuse someone you must discard one of these or, if you have none left, add an extra card to your hand. Players can therefore be much more liberal with the accusations as the game goes on.
Successfully completing a card may also offer you some sort of Reward, like choosing someone who must now hug you whenever you ask, or must agree with everything you say. Maybe the loser (of that duel) must move in slow motion until the end of the next duel. These are mostly just silly effects but offer some obvious scope for drinking game punishments when not obeying the rules, if you wanted to make this a drinking game. While the publishers have not in any way suggested/encouraged this, the potential is definitely there!
Oh wait, I’m getting a call, hold on…
…
DEER LORD!
Damnit!
Deer Lord does not need to be a drinking game for you to have fun with it. The format is simple yet encourages you to be as imaginative as possible. The game is clearly aiming for the same niche as Cards Against Humanity, yet while that’s offensive cut and paste jokes are forced on to you, the humour in Deer Lord is emergent from how you all behave as you play. The cards and gameplay act merely as prompts. When Kickstarter is often assailed by a wave of terrible CAH knock-offs, it’s great to see a party game with a sense of flair and originality.
That’s not to say there aren’t some odd activities in there. Particularly, you might not be comfortable with some of the Duels. For example, “Lick the most disgusting thing” or “Put the most stuff in your mouth” were a bit beyond what I wanted to do at the end of a game evening (those Mission Red Planet astronauts would have been on a mission none of them could have expected!), and others might not be for you. In particular, the “tell a story/joke” duels can really put players on the spot, and I know some people would not enjoy them. It is a simple enough task to remove some of the cards you don’t think your group would like, and there is an inbuilt mechanism to allow you to manage your hand; catching another player out lets you discard one card and draw a replacement. A very good element to have. I would say that 95% of the base game is going to be fine for everyone, but it is worth mentioning.
When you first play, you can bluff doing anything. However, the more you play, the more players will become familiar with the available cards, and the more restricted your options for bluffing will be. I would estimate you will see about a third of the deck in one game (give or take, depending on player number), so it will take a few games before you get to this point. It will not make the game worse, it just requires players to be craftier. Pretending to act out cards they know are in the deck to draw out false accusations. It will make the game harder for new players, however.
But of course, there are always the expansions! You’ve got Broadway for the real thespians in your group (do you have any of those?), Gangsta, which is probably the easiest to integrate into the base game bruv, Geek, adding some rather dull looking cards (although I would definitely be up for recreating a pokémon battle), Mean, which is as horrible as the name sounds, Flirty, which is, well, I don’t know what kind of parties you’re going to… and Asylum, which is your usual offensive take on mental illness. So yeah.
While I’m not impressed with the expansions, the base game is a lot of fun! The open nature of the game, to contrast again with Cards Against Humanity, means the lifetime of the game is really limited by your imagination. How you perform any single Duel or Do Something card will change with each player and each play. The game and the challenge will evolve as players become more familiar with the cards.
I was genuinely impressed by Deer Lord. Playing it is a unique experience, a blend of physical and verbal challenges, which takes the game well away from the tabletop. When I was first looking at this game, I was worried it would be only for extroverts, but I don’t think that’s true anymore. I had a lot of fun playing this game, and I would certainly not describe myself as extroverted, though I appreciate that I’m not nearly as self conscious as some. I suspect I would not be completely comfortable playing a game like this amongst total strangers. However, amongst a group of friends you’re comfortable with, anyone could have a lot of fun with this game!
Rating: Bucking the Trend!
Well! Now, that’s finished, where’s the bathroom?
…
Oh it’s just down the hall.
*Yep, corvine is the deer equivalent of canine (dogs) or bovine (cows). Don’t say you never learn anything new from your visits!
If you’re interested in getting hold of a copy of Deer Lord, go check out the Kickstarter page here before December 3rd.
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