Hello,

I wrote up the game of "The Quiet Year" last week I played with B, J, A. This was a particularly unique take on the game where we retold the story of civilians in an urban warzone. Civilization for them has collapsed as a civil war rages through the country. Can they survive until winter's ceasefire?

Obviously I couldn't include every move and every action in my write up but its accurate and tells the greater overall story. Check it out: This Quiet War of Mine

This was the first time I actually played "The Quiet Year" and it was definitely awesome. I sort of wish I had more experience with the system because I would have done a few things differently or maybe suggested different things and had different discussions.

When I originally suggested this style of game, I wasn't sure how much hacking or modding of TQY would be necessary. It turns out that basically none is necessary to tell this story.

This was probably my favorite Quiet Year game that I've played. The real-world grimness was a perfect fit and it really grounded things.

One option we didn't take advantage of (and which as facilitator I should have pointed out) is that if a project was too big to be done in six weeks, you can split it into stages. So step 1, we gather materials to rebuild the bridge, instead of just fixing the bridge, etc.

Thinking about it, I'd like to try it where one person sets the project but everyone else decides the time. That puts the narrative burden on the project player to describe something that makes sense. If you can't explain how it could be done, the other players will max out the time.

The other rules disconnect is that sometimes projects are still going but the situation has changed in a way that makes us wonder why we'd be still be working on them. Like when the soldiers took over our camp but we still had people dutifully repairing the water treatment plant. We didn't have an option to cancel the project if we wanted to. Not sure there's a fix for that and I think we did a good job of explaining those cases.

In hindsight, religion *totally* should have been on our scarcity/abundance list. It was the crux of a lot of what was going on.

Thanks a ton Eric for suggesting this!