''The Quiet Year'' is a map-drawing

tabletop role-playing game A tabletop role-playing game (typically abbreviated as TRPG or TTRPG), also known as a pen-and-paper role-playing game, is a form of role-playing game (RPG) in which the participants describe their characters' actions through speech. Participa ...

for 2-4 players about community building, by Avery Alder. The illustrations are by Ariel Norris, and Jackson Tegu is credited with additional design insights. It was independently published in 2013 by Buried Without Ceremony. ''The Quiet Year'' won the 2013

Indie RPG Awards The Indie RPG Awards are annual, creator-based awards for Indie role-playing games and supplements. They were established in 2002 by Andy Kitkowski, and are the most sought-after awards in the ''Indie RPG'' community. For the purposes of the Award ...

for Most Innovative Game. A new iteration of the game, with larger cards, rules refinements, and extra components, was published in 2019. The game has been featured on the

actual play Actual play, also called live play, is a genre of podcast or web show in which people play tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) for an audience. Actual play often encompasses in-character interactions between players, storytelling from the game ...

podcasts ''

The Adventure Zone ''The Adventure Zone'' is a weekly comedy and adventure actual play podcast based loosely upon the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' game series, along with other role-playing games. The show is distributed by the Maximum Fun network and hosted by brother ...

'' and ''

Friends at the Table ''Friends at the Table'' is an actual play indie podcast hosted by Austin Walker. The podcast has been active since September 2014, and episodes are released weekly. The collaboration between the gamemaster and the players is a major component ...

''.

Gameplay

''The Quiet Year'' combines elements of tabletop role-playing games and board games. It consists of a 32-page rulebook and a deck of cards, and it additionally requires drawing tools and six-sided dice. There is no

gamemaster A gamemaster (GM; also known as game master, game manager, game moderator, referee, or storyteller) is a person who acts as an organizer, officiant for regarding rules, arbitrator, and moderator for a multiplayer role-playing game. They are m ...

. Players represent parts of a community, managing resources and responding to card-based prompts, all represented by a shared map that they gradually draw together throughout play. The game emphasizes group decision making, with each player choosing whether to hold a discussion, start a project, or discover something new on their turn. Player speech each turn is limited, creating feelings of frustration on purpose. Players can express disagreement by taking Contempt tokens, which have no mechanical purpose but symbolize the difficulty of community decision making. Each turn represents a week across a year of in-game time, after which mysterious Frost Shepherds arrive and the game ends.

Sequel

''Deep Forest'' is the sequel to ''The Quiet Year.'' It was co-created by Avery Alder and Mark Diaz Truman, cofounder of Magpie Games. The

game mechanics In tabletop games and video games, game mechanics are the rules or ludemes that govern and guide the player's actions, as well as the game's response to them. A rule is an instruction on how to play, a ludeme is an element of play like the L-shap ...

are the same as ''The Quiet Year'', but players represent monsters rebuilding their community in the aftermath of destructive colonization by humans.

References

{{reflist Fantasy role-playing games Indie role-playing games Indie RPG Awards winners Role-playing games introduced in 2013