Description
The Quiet Year is a board game that lasts a year, or 52 weeks, each represented by a single card. Each week you draw something on the map in front of you. The goal is to build up your community. It was made by Joe McAldno.[1]
Opening story
The story is that after a population drives the mysterious 'Jackals' off, they have a peaceful year, or rather a quiet year, hence the name of the game, to build up the community.
Game-play
Setting up the game
The players each sit preferably on a table, with the map between them. Separate the cards by season, and shuffle each season, being careful not to mix up the seasons. The contempt tokens sit by the map, and the dice sit by the contempt tokens. Each player has a pencil, or some type of writing utensil.
Starting the game
Before we start the game, you must establish some facts about the community and its surroundings. You begin with a discussion. This can be as simple as a person saying – "What about a community in a valley, next to some mountains?" Each person playing should introduce one detail to the map, drawing it on the map. These drawings can be as crude or detailed as the subject wants. The community should be fairly large, occupying about one-third of the sheet. Unless otherwise stated, we assume the community has about 60-80 people. Next, we each declare an important resource for the community, something which we might have in either abundance or scarcity, such as fresh water or food, and a source of power, such as gasoline.
Playing the game
Counter-clockwise, starting with the person after the person who shuffled the cards, draw a card from the season you are in, starting with spring, and act on it. They can make three decisions –
Discover something new
A person in the community discovers something, perhaps a tool of some sort, or a danger.
Hold a discussion
Hold a discussion to find out what to do in reaction to the card, such as a suspicious man that appears out of the woods. In playing The Quiet Year, we must refrain from free-wheeling discussion about what to do next. There are specific mechanics in the game for discussing community issues and demonstrating our displeasure. When we play, we won’t speak out of turn or attempt to circumvent these mechanics. These rules work to demonstrate how difficult it is to engage the entire community in conversation, and how tensions and disagreements tend to linger across weeks or even months.
Start a project
To start a project, place a die on the map, where the project is. Estimate how many weeks it will take to finish the project, from 1-6 weeks, and display it on the die. Each turn there is, the person who directs the turn turns the die down, until the project is done, in which the finished project is drawn onto the map where the die was.
Ending the game
The game ends when the cards run out or the frost-walkers come.
References
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