Atomic Highway vs The Quiet Year
Compare Atomic Highway and The Quiet Year side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Atomic Highway | The Quiet Year | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Post-Apocalyptic | Post-Apocalyptic |
| Play Style | Rules-Light, Survival, Career-Based, Sandbox, Gritty, Resource Management, Classless | GM-Less, Worldbuilding, Collaborative, Narrative, Rules-Light, One-Shot Friendly, Fiction-First, Map-Drawing |
| Core Mechanic | V6 Engine: roll a number of d6 equal to the relevant attribute (rated 1–5). Each natural 6 is a success and is rerolled for a chance at additional successes. Skill points (rated 1–5) can then be spent to boost individual die results up to 6, generating further successes. Most tasks require one success; harder tasks require two or more. When all dice show 1, something goes wrong regardless of skill. Fortune points allow players to add successes, reduce opponent successes, or introduce narrative twists. | No dice, no GM. A deck of playing cards drives play: each suit is a season, each card a weekly prompt. On your turn, draw a card, answer the prompt, and choose to Discover Something New, Start a Project, or Hold a Discussion. Draw on the shared map to represent changes. Projects take multiple weeks to complete. The Contempt Token signals when a player feels unheard. The game ends when the Frost Shepherds arrive (King of Spades). |
| Dice | d6 dice pool | Diceless |
| Complexity | Low | Very Low |
| Accessibility | Very High | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Low |
| License | Proprietary (Free PDF) | Proprietary |
| Cost | Free | $ |
| Publisher | Gallant Knight Games | Buried Without Ceremony (Avery Alder) |
| Year | 2009 | 2013 |
| Best For | Groups who want a lightweight Mad Max–style post-apocalyptic game with fast-resolving vehicular combat, quick character creation via background templates, and a setting that supports road warriors, mutants, and wasteland scavengers without heavy rules overhead. | Groups who want to collaboratively build a community's story through map-drawing: 52 weeks of discoveries, projects, and tensions before everything changes. |
| Highlights | Core PDF is permanently free with no barriers to entry. Character creation uses Rearing and Pursuit templates that provide skills and starting gear in minutes. Detailed vehicle customization and chase rules support the road warrior fantasy as a core gameplay loop. Scavenging system with random tables generates loot from categorized ruin types. | Card-driven structure (one card per week across four seasons) paces the narrative through 52 turns, map-drawing produces a physical artifact of the session, Contempt Token mechanic signals when a player feels unheard, works as a standalone game or worldbuilding tool for other campaigns |
| Considerations | No structured social encounter mechanics beyond opposed skill rolls. Mutations and psychic powers are brief appendix options rather than fully developed subsystems. The publisher has not actively developed new content for the line since acquiring it in 2018. Setting material is deliberately generic, requiring GM effort to build specific locations and factions. | Contempt mechanic can create genuine inter-player tension, no way to revisit or undo earlier map decisions, map quality depends on group comfort with drawing, limited replayability with the same group |