Time for another impromptu game of The Quiet Year! Much like last time, I offered it into a roll20 session when we realised we didn’t want to continue a campaign without one of the players.
The story
In order to enforce a cheerful game, we used sentient steampunk guinea-pigs who may or may not have hands. They are in the town of Baconcroft to the left of centre of the map. We started with the Stork Hills to the north, and the River Mufflewatch wrapping round them to the estuary in the east.
They started with an Abundance of Blood, but Scarcities in Coal and Hay. Immediate attempts to resolve this by building a coal mine were started, although they turned out to wake a sleeping stone giant. Hay was grown in a farm, and then later kept in a barn, despite a flying saucer crashing nearby.
The blood turned out to be coming from an orphanarium up-river. Due to a flood, the river jammed near it, threatening the lives of the not-murdered orphans! Another project diverted the river around, also offering peace and safety for the majority of the orphanarium inhabitants. Their blood was used in a smithy, built solely for producing the ceremonial knives used in the sacrifices directly from the blood.
Meanwhile, on the river, an expedition was formed (the boat) which found a giant egg. A faction formed to crack the egg, which they started by forming a pontoon to reach it, slightly distracted by finding a ziggurat on the way.
The man looking like he’s going to fly over the barn is a travelling nose-ring seller, although presumably was so popular with the pigs here, he stayed for at least a few months.
I can’t even remember why there was a McDonald’s or a robot called Killatron. Killatron might have killed the crocodiles in the marsh to the north of the estuary, as they were definitely around for a while.
Yeah, so cheerful.
Lessons
No real surprises. I even remembered to remove the event cards about disease so as not to cramp our style! The only problem is knowing how many cards to remove to finish in the allocated time - by default it takes about three hours, once you know how to play. I dropped this into a 2-hour session and taught people and we got through about a third of the cards.
However, the official end of the Quiet Year is “The Frost Shepherds arrive, the end, no discussion”, so it’s not like there’s a missing denouement. The only problem I think is that you get a bunch of stories starting, but you won’t necessarily get attached. We used no Contempt tokens, although that could also be because we played a bit of a silly game. It’s fun, but it’s a bit mad-libs.
So:
- Consider this game isn’t short as I think it is (esp. with new people).
- Select gonzo rating.