Online roleplaying games
An online roleplaying game that needs no game master
Most online roleplaying games ask for the two things people do not have: an evening everybody is free for, and somebody willing to prepare it. Tavern Party is the version that asks for neither, and it fits in a coffee break. 2 to 6 of you open a link, build a character each, take on 5 encounters together, and one of you walks out with the Hoard. It takes about 7 min, it is free, and there is nothing to install.
What you actually do in it
The first two and a half minutes are character creation, and they are competitive. There are 8 Callings and only one of each per table, so you rank your choices and find out whether you got the one you wanted. The same again for the 12 pieces of Kit, except the order is reversed, so first crack at the Callings buys last crack at the gear. Then the server rolls 6 numbers once for the whole room and everybody assigns those same 6 numbers to their own abilities, which quietly ends the oldest argument in this hobby: real dice, identical starting material, and the only decision left is where you put the best one and who is prepared to live with the worst. Everything you are choosing between is published: the Callings, the Bloods, the Kit and the Hooks are all written out, so you can turn up having already decided what you want.
After that come the encounters, drawn from a pool of 30. Each one offers three ways through, each on a different ability, so the player who put their high number in Charm and the player who put it in Brawn are both looking at a door with their name on it and it is not the same door. One of the three pays far more than the others, keeps its target number hidden, and can only be taken by one player. That is the door the table argues about, every single time.
Then the part that surprises people. The game never prints a total. It prints the named things that made the total, in the order you would read them out: the die, then the ability, then the piece of gear, then the fact that you have done this before. Every number on screen traces back to a word, so a roll reads as a sentence and you always know which of your own choices did the work.
What makes it a game rather than a form
Your history is everybody's problem
You pick one of 20 Hooks: a specific thing you did, and what it left behind. It guarantees a matching encounter into the deck for the whole table, so your past is an edit to the night the other players have to survive, and they can all see whose fault it was.
Your fuel is in other people's hands
The tokens that make you good at something only refill when your own worst trait is used against you. Being singled out stops being a punishment and becomes the thing you were waiting for.
Failing leaves something you can spend
Every failure leaves a Scar, and after each encounter you decide: wear it in public, which pays at the end and frightens the party, or hide it, which costs you and nobody else. It is the cleanest decision in the game and there is no die involved.
Only one of you gets paid
The party survives together and exactly one player takes the Hoard, decided at the end by what you earned, what you were prepared to show, and one secret vote each. Nobody is ever fully out of it, which is the point of the vote.
Honestly, what it is not
It is not a virtual tabletop. There are no maps to draw on, no character portraits to upload, no campaign to continue next week and no way to type a plan and have somebody rule on it. If what you want is a long game with a person running it, this is not a substitute and it is not trying to be one. What it is, is the thirty seconds where somebody says "fine, I will go first", and the ten minutes either side of that, with nobody having to prepare anything.
It also does not need friends. Four daily puzzles run on the same engine with the dice pinned to the date, so everybody gets the same problem on the same day and a score is worth comparing. One of them is character creation on a fixed budget against a named encounter, because for a lot of people that always was the best part.
What you need to start
- A browser. A phone is fine, and every control is sized for a thumb.
- Between 2 and 6 people, or nobody at all if you sit a couple of strangers down at the table instead.
- 7 minutes, and 60 seconds of attention at a time.
- No account, no download, no card, no email address.
Questions people ask
- What is an online roleplaying game, in this sense?
- A game where you build a character with abilities and a history, and then those numbers decide what happens when the character tries something. Tavern Party does that in a browser tab, on a clock, for 2 to 6 players at once. It is not a virtual tabletop for running a longer game, and it is not a chat room. It is one self-contained night that takes about 7 min.
- Is it free?
- Yes, completely. There is nothing to buy, no subscription and no in-game currency. Adverts pay for the hosting, and they are never shown during a live encounter or a daily puzzle in progress.
- Do I need to download anything, or make an account?
- No to both. It runs in a browser on a phone or a laptop, and you can play as a guest. An account exists only so that your run history and daily scores follow you between devices.
- Does somebody have to be the game master?
- No. The server runs the encounters, rolls the dice and decides every outcome, so nobody has to prepare anything and nobody sits out. That is the main reason it is shaped this way: a game that needs one specific person to be present and responsive at a specific moment is a game that does not happen.
- How long does a game take?
- About 7 minutes. Every phase is simultaneous and on a timer, so a table of six takes the same time as a table of two, and the run never waits for one player to move.
- What happens if somebody closes the tab halfway through?
- Nothing stalls. Each phase resolves on its deadline whether or not everybody acted, and the default when you do not act is a real move called Flinch: it scores badly for you and it raises the party's Dread. An absent player becomes a problem the rest of the table can see and argue about, rather than a game that hangs.
- Can I type what my character says or does?
- No, and that is deliberate rather than a missing feature. Nothing here can adjudicate a sentence you invent, so instead every choice is a real option with a real number attached. The unknown lives in one hidden target number per encounter, on the line that pays the most.
- Is there anything to play on my own?
- Yes. There are four daily puzzles, all built on the same engine with the dice pinned to the date, so everybody in the world gets the same problem and the score you post is comparable. One of them is nothing but character creation.
- Is this based on an existing tabletop game?
- No. Every Calling, Blood, Hook, encounter and line of text was written for this game. Rules and mechanics are not anybody's property, so the dice work in a way you will recognise, but none of the words or the setting are borrowed from anywhere.