The Quiet Year vs Universalis
Compare The Quiet Year and Universalis side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| The Quiet Year | Universalis | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Post-Apocalyptic | Universal |
| Tags | GM-Less, Worldbuilding, Collaborative, Narrative, Rules-Light, One-Shot Friendly, Fiction-First, Map-Drawing | GM-Less, Narrative, Collaborative, Worldbuilding, Experimental, Hackable, Tag-Based, Resource Management, Improvisation, Low-Prep |
| Core Mechanic | 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). | There is no GM. Players spend Coins to add to the story: most statements that establish a Fact, such as a new character, a Trait or an Event, cost 1 Coin. A Complication decides who narrates the outcome of a clash between Components controlled by different players. Each involved player builds a pool of d10s by using relevant Traits for free or buying dice for 1 Coin each. Every die showing 1 to 5 is a Success, and the side with more Successes wins. Winners gain Bonus Coins equal to the total on their successful dice and spend them first to narrate the outcome. Losers gain 1 Bonus Coin per die rolled and narrate with whatever the winners have not cancelled. |
| Dice | Diceless | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very Low | Low |
| Availability | Paid | Paid |
| Runnability | 3 of 5 book tools | 3 of 5 book tools |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | No verified route found |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Buried Without Ceremony (Avery Alder) | Ramshead Publishing |
| Year | 2013 | 2006 |
| Languages | English | English |
| Best For | Groups who want to collaboratively build a community's story through map-drawing: 52 weeks of discoveries, projects, and tensions before everything changes. | Groups who want to build a setting and story from nothing without a GM, in any genre, and who enjoy bargaining over who decides what happens next. |
| Highlights | 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 | Rules Gimmicks are proposed as Tenets for 1 Coin, so a group can add or change rules mid-game the same way it adds story facts. Coins spent defending an established Fact count double when a Challenge goes to bidding, which makes contradicting the shared record more expensive without a referee. Another player can turn an Event into an Obstacle by buying dice against it, so the table supplies difficulty instead of a GM. |
| Considerations | 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 | Control of a character does not carry over between scenes, and creating a character gives no claim to it later. There is no prescribed mechanical ending, so a story runs until the players agree it is finished. Every paid Fact is written down so it can be enforced later, which adds steady bookkeeping to play. |