How to play
- Everyone gets the same room today. You have five turns and three HP.
- Each turn, type one sentence describing what you do. Be specific. Be weird.
- The Dungeon Master picks the stat and the difficulty before the dice move. You see both.
- The server rolls a d20 in the open. d20 + your stat (+ 2 for a clever kit item) must reach the DC. A specific, clever or wonderfully weird plan earns advantage: two dice, the higher counts. Vague or repeated plans get disadvantage.
- Get through the objective to escape. Lose all HP and you die. Five turns without escaping and you are trapped. Then share your result.
I fill out the blank receipt claiming the lich owes me 400 gold in back taxes.
INT check, DC 15. Rolled 13 plus 4, total 17. Success.
INT 4 is your stat. 13 + 4 = 17 beats DC 15. A natural 20 always succeeds; a natural 1 always fails.| DIFFICULTY | DC | MEANING |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | 8 | Competent people usually manage it |
| Moderate | 12 | Real chance of failure |
| Hard | 15 | Needs skill or a good idea |
| Very hard | 18 | Needs skill and a good idea |
| Heroic | 22 | Possible only with a crit or big bonuses |
When the run ends, the Showrunner scores your style on four things, up to 25 points each, 100 in all. How the run ended never caps it.
- Ingenuity — specific, clever, in-fiction plans
- Use of the room — the NPC's loves, hates and voice, the props, the objective
- Use of the kit — items used meaningfully, not just carried
- Showmanship — humour, story, momentum
Your score, out of 1000, is (6 × style + play) × an escape multiplier. Play, up to 200, counts what the referee ruled on each turn: a success 20 (5 when no roll was needed), a plan with advantage 15, disadvantage −10, a kit item used well 10, a natural 20 another 10. An escape multiplies the total by 1.10, up to 1.25 for a quick one in few turns; leaving the room by 0.90. Rank is by score, whatever the outcome: at an equal score the escape ranks first, then the earlier finish.
Five times a day, at 4 and 8 AM, noon, and 4 and 8 PM Pacific time, the room looks at what today’s players keep trying. A move that too many have made, and that keeps working, changes the room: the keeper catches on and moves, hides or guards something in the picture, a note in The room remembers says what happened, and that approach rolls with a penalty of 1 from then on. The changes add up through the day, up to five, and every new room starts fresh.
Read the notes before you plan. What worked for everyone else is now harder; the room rewards what it has not seen.
Share your result. When someone opens your link, you get an encore: today’s room again, unranked, with an extra item in your kit from Management.
When a new player finishes a run from your link, your streak gets a shield, up to two held. Miss a day and a shield takes it, and your streak stands. Accounts keep their shields; a guest’s go with the guest.
Three new players in thirty days make you a Herald: the title sits beside your name on the board and the wall. And whoever brought the most yesterday, the Showrunner names in the morning.
Friends have something to settle: each row on your Friends list shows this week’s head-to-head, like 3–2, over the rooms you both finished in the last seven days. The higher score takes a room, and a tie goes to neither.
Every result shared brings in viewers. Reach prime time in a day and the sponsors lean on Management: +1 on every check tomorrow, for everyone, and it says so on the dice line.