Uncharted Friday, adventurer!

There’s something that’s very popular amongst TTRPG players and specially DMs.

Homebrew settings!

However, they take a lot of work to be created. Characters, regions, politics… It’s an Herculean task.

But what if I told you you could do this…

In less than two hours…

Collaboratively…

And while playing a game!

The best part is, by the end of the session you will have a map of the region.

Let’s discover The Quiet Year

Build community after the collapse

Name of the game: The Quiet Year

Something I love about it: Its card-prompt system. In this game you prepare a deck of cards divided in suits, which correspond to the four seasons of the year. Each card you draw prompts you towards something that happened. You have to fill in the gaps and draw something in the map to represent it.

For example, the 8 of Hearts reads An old piece of machinery is discovered, cursed and dangerous. How does the community destroy it?

In our game this was the head of an elder robot from a forgotten civilization that would spit fire whenever someone drew closer. We deviated the course of the river to make a waterfall which wiould fall on top of the robot’s head, thus destroying it.

Of course, we drew a waterfall and a broken robot head.

This in itself is a great concept for an adventure you could play in a system like D&D or the newest Draw Steel.

A fond memory I have: One of the players was mostly into jokes and not serious worldbuliding. However, it worked!

The 3 of Clubs reads Someone issues a dire warning and the community leaps into action to avoid disaster. What is the warning? The warning was “This town is full of (literal) shit and this will bring bad consequences”.

A bit of a mood-killer, isn’t it? However, through the development of the next cards and the intervention of the other players, this warning led to the creation of latrines that prevented a highly dangerous epidemic that propagated through fecal waste.

This turned into a metagame game of this player throwing crazy ideas and the rest trying to fit them in the mood and the setting. This is not what a session of The Quiet Year usually looks like, but it was fun for us!

You’ll like it if you enjoy: Drawing maps, creating a story together, the mysticism of cards and fate.

Bountiful quests and successful rolls!

🦉 Irene the Wizard

🦃 Saúl the Bard

P.S: None of these messages are affiliated content. These are wholehartedly recommendations of games I truly enjoy.

P.S.S: Do you know any games similar to this one? Have you played it? I’d be stoked to read about it.