I have recently bought The Quiet Year. I really enjoy the concept, bit I find it hard to bootstrap a session.
At the beginning, players are faced with an almost blank white page, and they have to collectively build a world. After a few turns, this world contains some elements one can interact with, but at the beginning, steering the story in an interesting direction is quite hard.
Most of my friends are not into role playing games, but enjoy games such as Mafia.
How can I make the beginning of the game easier? Should I go for less freedom (maybe start with a non empty map) or run some "improvisation training" to help them overcome the writer's block? Has anyone solved this problem?