The Quiet Year - Week 6

Introduction

For a long time, we were at war with The Jackals.
Now, finally, we’ve driven them off, and we’re left
with this: a year of relative peace. One quiet year,
with which to build our community up and learn
again how to work together. Come Winter, the Frost
Shepherds will arrive and we might not survive the
encounter. This is when the game will end. But we
don’t know about that yet. What we know is that
right now, in this moment, there is an opportunity
to build something.

Welcome to The Quiet Year! I'll be the facilitator, a position less like a DM and more like the guy who brings the Fiasco rulebooks. The Quiet Year works best when all players are familiar with the rules. Treat everything I say outside quoteboxes as concessions to adjust the game from tabletop to play-by-post format.

We all have two roles to play in this game. The first is to represent the community at a bird’s eye level, and to care about its fate. The second is to dispassionately introduce dilemmas, as scientists conducting an experiment. The Quiet Year asks us to move in and out of these two roles.

We don’t embody specific characters nor act out scenes. Instead, we represent currents of thought within the community. When we speak or take action, we might be representing a single person or a great many. If we allow ourselves to care about the fate of these people, The Quiet Year becomes a richer experience and serves as a lens for understanding communities in conflict.

We’ll also be presented with opportunities to introduce new issues for the community to deal with. This will often happen when we draw cards or use the Discover Something New action. By dispassionately introducing dilemmas, and then returning to our other role as representatives of the community, we create tension and make the community’s successes feel real. If there’s an issue you struggle with in real life (like whether violence is ever justified), introduce situations that call it into question.

Next! What we'll be using to play!