Written by: Yiming Su
The Quiet Year is a TTRPG where players play as “abstract social forces” to rebuild a community after a devastating war while knowing the next one – fighting with the Frost Shepherds – is 1 year later, thus a quiet year.
Before The Quiet Year, I thought the genre was just DnD-like games. Players roleplay as living beings of the magical world. They have stats like dexterity, strength, hit point, IQ, etc. There’s a GM that provides the setting of the game and responds to the player’s actions with dice rolls. Oh, and also the not-so-usual dice: D12, D20, or even D100! Moreover, they have a long campaign; each game session usually spans 3 to 4 hours. In terms of mechanics, they would talk to each other, almost like telling a story. And in a more general sense, if you ask me what an RPG game is, I would say: “Oh you know, The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Mass Effect trilogy (sorry Andromeda, you are not it 🙁 ), just games where you play as the main character in a story, and you get to tell a story in your own way.”
After playing The Quiet Year, I think I have a better sense of TTRPG and RPG in general.
The Quiet Year breaks most of my stereotypes about TTRPG. In this game, I don’t play as a magical character. I don’t have stats. There’s no GM to talk to. Instead, The Quiet Year constructs a narrative space for the players to tell a story about rebuilding a community. The prompt cards act as the game engine to push us to build the narrative and often make difficult decisions. How does it achieve the narrative-building work through so little material?
The most important element in the game that helps first give a rough sense of the space is the rulebook. The meticulously crafted booklet format looks like a handbook that every member of the community gets as instructions to rebuild their collective home. The font of the titles and the subtitles produces a personal feeling that the game is about “telling stories,” unlike other more commonly found fonts such as Arial or Times New Roman, which are more neutral and official.
The background story of the game also contributes to the world-building effort. It provides a beginning and an ending to the player’s story, but the middle part is left empty, waiting for the players to fill in. These two defined plot points are neutral enough in that it doesn’t affect how the players progress through the cards, but they are also specific enough that the symbolisms of the phrases“ the Jackals” and “the Frost Shepherds” produce certain imagery for the players to guide them through the game. Combined with the aesthetic of the rulebook, it successfully defines a solid foundation for the players to build upon.
The middle part of the story is where players play, but it would be too vast such that the players might get lost in it if there is no guidance at all. This is where the prompt cards come in handy. They are carefully crafted to follow the general plot. The prompt cards, marked by 4 suits of poker cards, represent 4 seasons in a year. Spring is when the players start to rebuild their community. They introduce new elements to the community, adding their identity to the story. It is a calm season. Summer and Autumn are when the time gets rough. The players need to make difficult decisions. For example, a member of our community is sick, give up the round to take care of them or keep building projects and let them die. Winter is the hardest season of all. The player knows the Frost Shepherds are closing in. The community faces the challenges of the winter season. Eventually, because each suit is shuffled independently, a player will draw the “game over” card that says “The Frost Shepherds have arrived,” and the game abruptly ends, leaving the players to discuss the community they built. The design of 4 seasons and the sudden ending of the game build up anxiety and tension among the players in that, they know the game will end at any moment, but harsh decisions should still be made for the sake of the community.
Joining the prompt cards, the other important mechanic of the game is map drawing. There is no preset map for the players to play, but they need to provide an empty sheet of paper and draw their community on it. Most of the prompt cards ask the players to act out an action by drawing on a sheet of paper. This is a direct reflection of their decision. At the same time, it allows the player to customize their drawing and reflect their characterization in the game. As the game progresses, more and more projects are built on the map, which is a straightforward visual representation of “rebuilding a community.” The map co-creates the player’s story by giving the story a concrete visual theme. Full of their drawings, the map is a community that all players will feel belong to.
The Quiet Year is one of the best tabletop games I have ever played. Unfortunately, during my first playthrough, I was the player who drew the “game over” card at the very beginning of the Winter season, so we did not get to experience it at all. However, the abruptness of the game is surprising yet intriguing to me, leaving us to talk about the community we just built.
