The Quiet Year - Week 6

Here's a thread for me, Sanzh, Chwoka, and Granolaman to play a little exercise in post-apocalyptic community building. We'll firstly decide which we'll play: The Quiet Year, or the Deep Forest.


Both games are about a community living week-by-week, preparing for winter and with it, the arrival of a mysterious agent who will serve to a) end the game and b) spell a likely end to the community in its current state.

Mechanically, they're very similar games. Each turn (an in-game week) you draw a card, choose an answer to one of the questions posed by the Oracle, mark the passage of time on projects underway, then choose one of three actions: Discover something new/Uncover something old, Start a discussion/Agree on something, and Start a Project.

It should be noted that the only way to reflect/talk about how people are feeling about progress is heavily structured and is likely to leave much unsaid/unresolved. It also comes at the cost of building/finding new things. In addition to this there are Contempt Tokens, which don't serve major mechanical purpose but keep a tally of disagreements and friction in the community.

In both games, we're encouraged to introduce factions and individuals as the game proceeds. Although we can speak for them, these aren't player characters tied to individual players.

So! The game options.

• The Quiet Year is about a community given a year's reprieve from raiders. Come Winter, the Frost Shepherds will arrive. At gamestart, we each add a location to the map and name an important resource, then as a group we choose which of those resources are abundant or scarce.
  
• The Deep Forest is about monsters in a forest which was until recently controlled by humans. In a year's time, an adventuring party will arrive. At gamestart, we collectively choose a major symbol of the humans' occupation, each introduce a monster and its lair, name a remnant technology/custom left behind by the humans, and from said remnants choose one Adoption and three Taboos.

The rulebook for The Deep Forest is here: <Link>
The Oracle is here: <Link>