A whole roleplaying night in about 7 min

Why it is like this

The best part of this hobby is making a character, and the worst part is finding four adults who are all free on the same Tuesday. So the whole thing is built around the first problem and around the second one being impossible. Character creation gets over two of the minutes and it is competitive, because being denied the Calling you wanted is more interesting than filling in a form. And nothing in a run ever waits for a specific person to answer: every phase is on a clock, resolves whether or not you acted, and the default when you do not act is a real move with real consequences rather than a skip.

The other decision worth naming is that the game never prints a total. It prints the named things that made the total. You needed fourteen, the die gave eleven, and then a line each for the ability, the piece of gear and the thing you have done before. Every number traces back to a word, and that list is the entire narration budget: it reads like prose without anybody writing prose for every possible outcome.

What is actually in it

There are also four daily puzzles. Three run the same dice as the live game, pinned to the date, so everybody in the world gets the same night and the score you post is comparable. The fourth has no dice in it at all. One of them is nothing but character creation, because for a lot of people that always was the game.

What it deliberately does not do

• No free text. The one thing an app genuinely loses next to a real table is permission to try the idea you just had and have somebody adjudicate it. We cannot adjudicate free text, so we do not pretend to. Every choice is a real option with a real number, and the unknown lives in the one target number the game keeps hidden.
• Nothing borrowed. Every Calling, Blood, Hook, encounter and line of copy here was written for this game. Game rules are not anybody's property, and the words are ours, which is cheaper than a licence and better than being a reskin of something else.
• No advertising during play. Ads pay for the hosting, and they are never rendered during a live encounter or a daily puzzle in progress.
• No account required, ever. Guests are first class. Play as a guest and your streaks live in your own browser. An account only exists so you can keep a record across devices.

Who made it

My name is Adam Mackay. I built and I run Tavern Party, on my own, in the evenings, from the United Kingdom. Every rule, every Calling, every encounter and every line of copy on this site is mine, including the ones that are wrong. There is no team behind this and no company: one person, a laptop, and a game that got out of hand.

I am also the person who answers the post. If something is broken, or a rule reads wrong, or you have an encounter you think belongs in the deck, the contact form reaches me and nobody else, and it is the only support channel there is. I am the data controller for this site as well, which is set out properly in the privacy notice.

This is the third small browser game in a short row of them, and the others are below. They are all the same shape: something you can finish in a coffee break, free, with nothing to install.

• 🎧Aux WarsDaily music puzzles, and multiplayer rows about who has the best taste.
• 📈Shareholder PartyAn office board game and four daily puzzles. Praise the shareholders.
• ⚽Car FootballFour letters. Six cars. One ball.
• 🏎️Kart PartyKart racing in a browser tab.