- Posts: 2074
- Thank you received: 3301
Bugs: Recent Topics Paging, Uploading Images & Preview (11 Dec 2020)
Recent Topics paging, uploading images and preview bugs require a patch which has not yet been released.
The Quiet Year
cranberries wrote:
dysjunct wrote: TYQ is amazing but you really have to get everyone on board with the "no talking when it's not your turn" thing. You can't have the normal kibitzing and wisecracking and still maintain the feel of the game.
I would love to hear more about your experiences with TQY.
Continued from here to avoid derailing.
I've played TQY twice. Both times fell a little short of the game's potential, but both were fun and I'd like to play the game again. They were a while ago, so my memory is hazy.
The first time was on Google Hangouts with some other guys from RPGgeek. We did the drawing on a Hangouts plugin ( final map ). The MS-paint quality drawing made it a little goofy. The image is of our colony, which we put in an abandoned Cheyenne-mountain style bomb shelter, with a nice green toxic atmosphere up above. It was fun and worked okay, but playing VOIP lost a lot of the physical symbolism of interacting with the game's components. We had one guy who was the facilitator; he drew the cards and held them up to the camera. I don't remember how we dealt with contempt tokens.
The second time was with a bunch of guys from my regular group. We had five total -- the game recommends four. I had asked the designer for any suggested modifications for the extra player but didn't see her response before the game. (Normally there is one abundant resource and three scare resources; she recommended that for five, we have two abundant resources and three scarce.) Nonetheless the game worked fine. The main drawback is that my group is given to kibitzing and cracking wise, and this was exacerbated by the fact that this was shortly after my kid was spawned, so I was being repeatedly toasted with a variety of fine whiskies. Which then led to a feedback loop of more kibitzing and toasting. As a result, I don't remember much about this game, except that it took forever due to all the talking, and I had to actively lobby against putting in zombies. Fucking zombies. We had red glass beads to represent contempt tokens, but the symbolism of grabbing one was undercut by all the chatter going on, and also the tendency of the token-grabber to say "FUCK YOU I'M TAKING CONTEMPT."
As you may recall from the rules, you are not supposed to speak except when you're the active player, or when the active player calls for a discussion (in which case, you may say (at most) 1-2 short sentence to make your case. One of the themes of the game is that communities are hard, and reaching consensus as a large group is difficult. Of course normally it is much easier in a small group (3-5 people) to reach consensus, so the restrictions on talking (arguing, pushing your POV, etc.) help recreate that difficulty in your typical around-the-table-with-friends setting. So the next time we play, I will rigorously enforce the no-talking rules. And also add a no-hard-liquor rule as a corollary.
I've played one other restricted-talking game: Polaris: Chivalric Tragedy at Utmost North, by Ben Lehman. Not a lot of points of mechanical comparison, but the overall feeling end up being similar: lyrical and meditative. And also kind of sad.
Overall I recommend both, but I think TQY is better, shorter, and easier to grok. I don't see much need for the printed version, the PDF is good enough.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Matt Thrower
- Offline
- Shiny Balls
- Number Of Fence
www.nohighscores.com/2013/07/19/the-quiet-year-review/
It's fascinating to play, but I'm not sure how much I'd even call it a game, let alone a role-playing one. It's more of a group story-generation exercise.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Cranberries
- Offline
- D10
- You can do this.
- Posts: 3139
- Thank you received: 2484
I believe this is the review of the game that led me to buy a copy. I shared it with my daughter, who runs with the attractive nerd girls, one of whom said, "I don't think I would like D and D, but I should probably try it!"MattDP wrote: I really like The Quiet Year. I reviewed it a while ago. I thought I'd posted a link to it here, but I can only find one from NHS now.
www.nohighscores.com/2013/07/19/the-quiet-year-review/
It's fascinating to play, but I'm not sure how much I'd even call it a game, let alone a role-playing one. It's more of a group story-generation exercise.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
rpggeek.com/thread/1137922/making-high-s...t-year-creative-writ
... from a guy who adapted it to his high school creative writing class.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.