The Quiet Year - Starter guide

What is The Quiet Year?

The Quiet Year is a map-drawing game about a community trying to rebuild after the collapse of civilization. You and your fellow players don't control individual heroes. Instead, you act as abstract social forces shaping the fate of a small group of survivors. The setting starts from a single premise: for a long time you were at war with The Jackals, you've finally driven them off, and now you have one year of relative peace before the Frost Shepherds arrive in winter and the game ends, possibly with the community itself.

It sits in an unusual space, part roleplaying game, part collaborative cartography. There is no gamemaster, no combat rolls, and very little of what most people picture when they hear "RPG." What you produce is a hand-drawn map and a story told through it.

How the system works

The year is represented by a standard deck of 52 cards, one per week. The suits are seasons: Hearts for Spring, Diamonds for Summer, Clubs for Autumn, Spades for Winter. You build the deck so the seasons arrive in order, with the King of Spades shuffled into the winter cards. When that king turns up, the Frost Shepherds arrive and the game stops immediately.

Each turn belongs to one player and follows a simple sequence. You draw the week's card and resolve the prompt printed on it, which might introduce bad news, a stroke of luck, or a complication. You then tick down any active project dice. Finally, you take one of three actions: discover something new, hold a discussion, or start a project.

Discovering something new introduces a fresh situation, problem, or opportunity, and you draw it onto the map with a small, quick sketch. Holding a discussion poses a question to the group, and each player gets exactly one sentence to respond, no back-and-forth allowed. Starting a project means placing a die on the map set to the number of weeks the work will take, counting down each turn until it finishes.

Two other elements give the game its emotional weight. Project dice track the slow grind of ambition against time. Contempt Tokens represent simmering resentment: when you feel your voice was ignored or a decision went badly, you can take a token in silence, and they accumulate as a quiet record of the community's fractures.

A defining rule is that you may not speak out of turn. That restriction is the whole point. It mirrors how hard it is to get a real community to act with one voice, and how misunderstanding and frustration build when people can't simply talk things through.

What you need to start

The boxed second edition is genuinely self-contained. It includes a rulebook, a custom deck of game cards, a Turn Summary card, six dice, and a set of Contempt Tokens shaped like small skulls. With the box, you only need to supply paper for the map and a few pencils or pens.

You can also play with materials you almost certainly already own. The game works perfectly with a regular deck of playing cards, any six-sided dice, some tokens (coins, beads, anything), and paper. The custom edition adds production polish and convenience, but it is not strictly required to play.

The game is designed for one session of three to four hours with two to four players, no prep and no GM.

Who this game is for

The Quiet Year suits players who enjoy collaborative storytelling and are comfortable with ambiguity. If you like building something together, watching it develop in unexpected directions, and sitting with bittersweet outcomes, this will land beautifully. It's excellent for groups interested in themes of community, scarcity, and the difficulty of collective decision-making.

It is also a strong fit for people who find traditional crunchy systems intimidating. There are no character sheets to learn and no math to master.

Where it falls short: if your group wants tactical combat, character advancement, or a heroic power fantasy, this is the wrong game. It deliberately resists individual agency, and communities here tend toward brokenness as often as triumph. The no-talking-out-of-turn rule can also frustrate players who prefer free, lively table banter.

How it differs from other systems

Compared to something like Dungeons & Dragons, the contrast is stark. There's no GM, no party of player characters, no dice rolling to determine success, and no win condition. Where D&D zooms in on individuals and their adventures, The Quiet Year zooms out to an entire society.

It's closer in spirit to other GM-less narrative games, but even there it stands apart through its central artifact: the map. If you've played Microscope, the collaborative world-building feels familiar, but The Quiet Year is more intimate and more focused on a single fragile community in a single year.

Where to begin

Read the rulebook through once before your first session, as the facilitator is meant to guide the group through the opening setup by reading sections aloud. The setup itself is quick: decide on the terrain, sketch a few starting features onto the map, and name resources you have in abundance or scarcity.

Then just begin. The structure carries you. Draw a card, take an action, pass to the next player. Trust the prompts and resist the urge to over-plan.

For external support, Avery Alder's own materials and the many actual-play recordings online give a good feel for the rhythm before you sit down. Watching even part of a session clarifies how the silence and one-sentence discussions actually play out.

One note worth flagging: there is a sequel, Deep Forest, co-created by Avery Alder and Mark Diaz Truman, in which players represent monsters rebuilding after destructive human colonization. It's a natural follow-up once you've enjoyed the base game.

Recommended products at Netherbook

The boxed second edition of The Quiet Year is the obvious starting point, and the most satisfying way to experience the game thanks to its dedicated cards and skull-shaped Contempt Tokens.