The short set of rules that is not the game

Tavern Party is a free browser game. There is nothing to buy, no subscription, and no currency of any kind. The Hoard, Renown, Laurels and everything else you win are numbers in a game and have no value outside it. Nothing here is gambling: there is no stake, no payout, and no way to put money in.

You do not need one. If you make one, keep the password to yourself, use an address you can actually reach, and do not pick a username designed to impersonate somebody else or to be a slur. Accounts that exist to abuse other players get closed without notice, and you can close yours whenever you like by asking through the contact form.

You type a character name and you vote for other players. That is the whole of what you can say to a stranger here, and it is deliberate. Do not use the name field for harassment, slurs, or anything you would not say to somebody sitting opposite you. Names that break this get removed, and the accounts behind them get closed.

Do not attack the service. That means no scraping, no automated play, no attempts to find or exploit a flaw in how the server decides an outcome, no denial of service and no trying to reach other players' data. Every dice roll and every result is decided on the server precisely so that this is not worth attempting.

The rules, the writing, the design and the code are mine. Every Calling, Blood, Hook, encounter and line of copy was written for this game, and none of it is taken from any published roleplaying product. You are welcome to talk about the game, post your scores, stream it, and write about it. You may not copy the text or the artwork and publish it as your own, and you may not sell access to it.

Game mechanics are nobody's property, in this country or anywhere else, so if you want to build your own game that works like this one, go ahead. Just write your own words.

If you write a dungeon here, it stays yours. You keep the copyright in your rooms and your words. What you give me is permission to host it, show it, put it on the shelf out front, and quote a line of it when pointing people at it. That permission lasts as long as the dungeon is on the site, and unlisting it ends it.

Publish only writing that is your own. Not somebody else's adventure retyped, not text out of a published roleplaying product, and nothing generated and passed off as written. Nothing threatening, nothing sexual involving anybody who is not clearly an adult, nothing aimed at a real person, and nothing that exists to make somebody feel unwelcome. A dungeon that breaks this comes down, and the account behind it goes with it if it was deliberate.

Nothing published here is checked by me before it appears, so a dungeon reachable by link is one person's writing and not mine. The Hall out front is different: every dungeon on it was read by a person before it went up. If you find something that should not be there, send me the six-letter code through the contact form and I will look at it myself. There is no automatic takedown button, deliberately: a button that hides anything enough people click is a griefing tool.

Your dungeon can be taken down without notice if it breaks any of the above. It can also come down if it turns out to be broken in a way the solver did not catch. I do not promise to keep anything forever, and you should keep your own copy of anything you would be sorry to lose.

The site is provided as it is. It may be down, a run may be interrupted, a table may be lost, and a score may fail to save. It is a free game run by one person, and none of that comes with a guarantee. Nothing here is fit for any particular purpose beyond spending ten minutes of an evening on it.

To the extent the law allows, I am not liable for any loss arising out of using the site, and in particular not for indirect or consequential loss. Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. If you are a consumer, your statutory rights are unaffected.

Adverts pay for the hosting. They are served by Google and are never shown during a live encounter or a daily puzzle in progress. What an advert says is the advertiser's business, not mine, and clicking one takes you somewhere these terms do not cover. What Google does with cookies is set out in the privacy notice.

These terms can change, and the current version is always the one on this page. Rules and numbers in the game change too, because it is being balanced. I can suspend or withdraw the service, or any part of it, at any time. You can stop using it at any time, and clearing your browser storage removes everything a guest has here.

These terms and any dispute about them are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction. If you are a consumer resident elsewhere in the United Kingdom, you may also bring proceedings in your own courts.