Four short guides, the mechanics that shape each story, and the questions players ask us.
I climb the bell tower to watch the square unseen.
Choose a prepared story, create your character and act in your own words. Rules and dice settle uncertain outcomes; narration tells the consequences in a world that keeps its secrets.
How you want to live a story. You choose a universe each time you open a table; every universe lists the mechanics it brings.
What each one adds to your game. Every story page shows which ones it needs.
Every uncertain action is settled by a roll you see. The story never picks the outcome for you.
The dice only come out when the outcome is truly uncertain. Before the roll, you know how hard it will be, and that never changes afterwards.
The roll decides, the story follows. Failed? Trying again gets easier, and sometimes you get there anyway, at a price.
The story keeps time. Hours pass, events happen on schedule, and arriving late can mean arriving too late.
Every action takes time: a long walk, a whole night of watching, a quick word at the door. While it lasts, you see how far along it is.
Pick your pace: follow each moment, or fast-forward through the quiet hours. A long action can be stopped when something comes up.
The world has real distances. Where you stand decides who you meet and what you can reach.
No map on your screen: the world is told to you, like to a traveller. By the road, sixteen kilometres. Across the marsh, ten, through water and rough ground.
Leave the road whenever you like. And be careful: a map found in the story may lie.
Your character is better at some things than others, and it shows in every roll.
Strong, nimble, well-read, persuasive: you shape your character when you create them, and those strengths weigh on every roll.
The story can change them along the way, and tells you so at the end of each chapter.
What your character practises is what they get better at.
Your character’s trade sets where each skill starts. During a scenario, every skill they use counts.
At the end of the scenario, the skills they practised go up, and you are told which and by how much.
What you carry is tracked, item by item. What you find, you keep.
Every object counts: the rope, the letter, the last coin. What you can grab depends on what you have seen around you.
What is used is gone. A potion drunk is a potion lost, even when it does not work.
What you wear and wield changes what you can do, and how much you can carry.
A good coat, a sturdy blade, a lantern at your belt: what you wear changes your chances.
Changing takes time. Better think about it before the trouble starts.
Your character wants something. Acting on it moves the story and is rewarded.
Give your character a temperament, a deep need and a dream. The story makes you feel them, scene after scene.
Each chapter can bring personal goals. Pursue them, and the story remembers.
Your character gets hungry, thirsty and tired. Ignore it for too long and it starts to cost.
Hunger, thirst and sleep rise as the hours go by. In calm moments, your character eats and drinks from their bag without being asked.
A warning shows next to their name, orange then red. Push too far and they may collapse in the middle of an action.
A serious wound stays on the sheet, and a death is final.
A serious wound that does not kill leaves a lasting injury on your character’s sheet. It weighs on their rolls from then on, and the journal tells you what the table did to them.
A character who dies stays dead: no return, no exception.
Rules inspired by OpenQuest 3
None. If you can write a sentence, you can play. The story explains itself as you go.
Yes. Every story can be played solo, with the same rules.
No. Everyone plays their turn when they can. The story waits for the table, not for an evening in the calendar.
Each story suggests a number of players. It is a suggestion, not a limit.
Whenever you like. Your table keeps its place, and a recap tells you what your character lived while you were away.
In English or in French: choose your language from the menu at the top right.
Pricing is in the app. What will not change is what we want to offer: a unique experience, a calm game, stories that carry you away, and care for our impact on the world.
From the app, or without it with the form of the Delete my account page, at the bottom of every page of this site. Your account is first archived for eight days, and signing in again before then cancels the deletion. After eight days, your account, characters and private thoughts are erased for good, except the private thoughts the analysis journal of a table you leave to other players keeps until its limited time runs out; what you shared with a table stays with the other players, under the name “A player who left”.