at Love
Sit. The Dungeon Master has been expecting you. Ten questions, one character sheet, one stranger whose path crosses yours tonight.
The Three Acts
Three acts. A short walk from a blank page to a stranger whose path crosses yours.
The Interview
Ten questions. No checkboxes, no sliders, no fields marked “height.” The Dungeon Master asks; you answer in your own words. By question ten, they know who you actually are.
The Character Sheet
What returns is not a profile but a sheet. Stats, alignment, ideal, bond, flaw, epithet. A version of you a friend would describe at a dinner party. Kindly, but truthfully.
The Encounter
One match per night. A place, a stranger, a reason your paths cross. Approach, or pass. There is no infinite scroll. There is no second tavern.
What a Sheet Looks Like
A page from the ledger of a player named Maeve. She agreed to let us show you hers.
"Carpenter's grandchild, slow to anger, quick to apologise."
We don't infer your stats from a personality test. They're built from how you answered: the words you reached for, the things you laughed at, the answers you hedged.
Maeve's WIT is high because she made a joke about her grandmother's funeral that she instantly apologised for. Her CHARM is mid-range because she doesn't perform.
- ✦ the shape of your answers, not the words
- ✦ what you hedge on, what you don't
- ✦ who's nearby that hedges differently
- ✦ whose flaws make your ideals braver
Practice Partners
Real first impressions are rare. Rehearse them with company the Dungeon Master conjures from the hearthsmoke. No stakes, no real hearts on the line.
Win them over, then hear how you did
A handful of characters, each won a different way. Talk with them, try to win their regard, and when the round is up, the Dungeon Master tells you plainly what landed and what didn’t. Practice the nerve, not the lines, so you never waste a real first impression.
Of Modern Dating
Hearken, traveler. The apps of this age have made strangers into commodities and courtship into a slot-machine. We mean to put the table back in the tavern. Some house rules:
Thou shalt not swipe.
There is one stranger tonight, and they were chosen for you. Tomorrow, perhaps one more. The slot-machine has been retired.
Thou shalt not list thy height.
You will not enter numbers about yourself into a form. You will be asked questions, in conversation, and the answers will become a sheet.
Thou shalt not be a brand.
You are a character with a sheet, not a thumbnail with a tagline. The hedges, the apologies, the half-jokes. Those are the data.
Thou shalt meet in the third place.
A bar, a bookshop, a coffeehouse. The tavern is older than any of us, and it still works. We do not encourage indoor sessions.
Thou shalt have one shot.
There is no second tavern. If you pass, you pass. If you go, you go. The dignity of a real choice has been restored.
The First Taverns
We light the hearths one at a time. Denver's table is set first. The rest follow in an order still unwritten, decided by where the names gather.
No fixed order yet. The next hearth lights wherever the ledger fills fastest.
Your city still dark? Inscribe your name. We light new taverns where the names gather thickest.
Roll Initiative
Inscribe your name in the ledger. You will hear from the DM before the gates open.