Playing together

Every world is shared. Anyone the builder lets in plays in the same towns, on the same map, and you can walk into a tavern and find another player's character already there. You can play together like that without any setup: see Sharing a room.

A party goes further. Its members travel on one march and keep one clock, fight on one battle map in shared rounds, walk one run of a dungeon and can take the same job. Each player still plays their own character, and the storyteller never speaks or acts for another player's character. Storyteller

• Size. A party holds up to four players by default. Each world's builder sets this: no parties at all, pairs, three, four or six. Engine
• By character. Membership belongs to a character, not an account, so your other characters aren't in it. Engine
• Followers come too. Every member's NPC companions travel, fight and go underground with their own hero. Engine
• Not every world. Parties aren't available in a world whose storyteller is a player's own agent. Engine

• Invite someone from the Deck (Invite to party on their card), or from the Party tab on your character page, where you can search players by name. Inviting while you're alone forms the party. Engine
• An invite lasts 24 hours. Answer it on your Party tab or in the party's chat room. Invited players can also get a notification, if they've turned notifications on.
• Leaving is always free. The leader can also remove a member and rename the party. A party ends when its last member leaves. Engine

The leader decides where the party goes: their marches move the party, and in a dungeon only they walk it. The leader can hand the lead to anyone else at any time. Engine

• Take the lead. Once the leader has been offline or idle for 10 minutes, any member who is online can tap Take the lead. Engine
• Call for a new leader. In a party of three or more, any member can say who should lead. It passes as soon as more than half of all members back the same person. Engine
• If the leader leaves the party or dies, the lead passes on. Engine

The chat panel gets a Party room while you're in a party or invited to one. It's out of character and only the members see it. Invites are answered there, the game posts short lines when something happens (someone joins or leaves, the lead changes, who got which spoils), and you can see when another member is typing, both there and in the story.

Outside a fight, every player takes their own turns and each turn gets its own narration. Only one turn resolves in a room at a time. Engine If you took the last turn and another member is writing, your next one waits for theirs, for up to 25 seconds, so two people don't talk over each other. The leader can send at once.

The storyteller is told who is in the party and which of them are in the room, and it turns the spotlight now and then to the member whose own story has waited longest. Storyteller

When the leader marches across the map, every member who is with them marches too: same position, same camp, same days on the road. With them means in the same place or within 6 km on the map, set to ride along, and not an offline player who chose to wait. Engine

• Ride along, or stay behind. Your Party tab has a choice for the road: Ride with the leader or Stay behind. Setting off somewhere on your own also stops you following. Engine
• One clock. Members who are together keep the same time. Whenever one of them moves time on, the rest catch up to whoever is furthest ahead; nobody's clock goes back. Time of day moves on with the party's turns, scaled to how many players are online, so three people talking don't make the sun race. Engine
• Notices. When the leader sets off, arrives, camps or is ambushed, the others are told, with a way to go there or follow. Engine
• While you were away. Come back after the party has moved and a card catches you up on where it went. Engine

At sea

A booked passage takes the party aboard together. Each member pays their own fare when they're there and can; the leader covers anyone who is away or short. Anyone nobody can pay for stays ashore and stops following. Engine

A fight one member starts takes in every member standing in the same place, online or not, along with their followers. The party's side holds six bodies: heroes first, then followers shared out between their owners. Every hero has a token on the battle map. Engine

Rounds

A party fight runs in rounds. Everyone writes what they do in the action box, as they would any turn, and can change it until the round resolves. The round panel shows who has declared and who is still deciding. Engine

• The round resolves the moment everyone who is online has declared.
• Otherwise a 90-second window, started by the first declaration, closes it. The window waits while someone who hasn't declared is still typing.
• The leader can tap Resolve now at any time.

When the round resolves, it plays out in this order: Engine

1. Every hero acts. Each action is graded and rolled, in the order they were declared, while the enemies hold still.
2. The enemies' announced blows land, on wherever their targets now stand, against each hero's own defence.
3. The enemies show their next moves, as telegraphs on the map, each aimed at a hero or a follower.
4. One narration tells the whole round.

Because everyone acts before anything lands, an enemy you kill, throw, knock down or wall off doesn't get its blow in. Step out of a blast and it hits the empty squares. Engine

Protecting and reviving an ally

• Step in front. Put yourself between an ally and harm, and end beside them, and the single-target blows meant for them land on you instead, against your own defence. Blasts still hit the squares they were aimed at. Engine
• Get a fallen ally up. Reach them (the square next to theirs) and use healing magic, a healer's skill or a healing item, and they're back on their feet with part of their health. An item is used up, and a rarer one restores more. What works depends on the world's rule, below. Engine
• Bare hands stop the bleeding. Your ally stays down, but won't die of it, and comes to on their own. Engine

Working together

• Flanking. A blow at a foe that an ally is fighting from the far side lands better. Engine
• Focus fire. A second hero landing a hit on the same foe in a round builds your side's momentum, which raises everyone's chance to hit. Engine
• Blows at followers are announced too, a round ahead, like blows at heroes, and land on wherever the follower stands. Engine
• Pings. Press and hold a square (or right-click it) to point it out to the party for a few seconds.

More of you, more of them

A party fight scales to the party. Ordinary foes come in greater numbers, about half as many again for each hero past the first, up to eight. Elites and bosses don't multiply; they get tougher instead, with half their health again for each extra hero. Engine

Fleeing, and undo

• A hero who flees steps back out of the fight. If everyone does, the fight ends. Engine
• Undo last turn is off during a party fight. Engine
• Members who aren't online get a notification that their party is in a fight, if they've turned notifications on.

Every hero gets their full experience for the win, worked out against their own power, and the coin is split evenly. Engine

Named items the fallen carried go on a Spoils card instead of into one person's pack. Each item shows what it is, what it does and what it would replace on your own sheet. Everyone taps Want or Pass. Engine

• One player wants it: it's theirs.
• Several want it: it goes to a roll between them, and party chat says who won.
• Nobody wants it: it stays with whoever struck the last blow.

The card closes once everyone online has chosen, or after two minutes. A player who isn't online counts as passing. Engine

A player in the same place who isn't in the party sees that a party is fighting there, and can tap Lend a hand to join as a guest. A guest declares in the rounds like everyone else, and gets experience, a share of the coin and a place on the Spoils card. One fight holds six heroes, guests included. Engine

The leader can close the fight to others from the round panel (Closed to others), and open it again. Engine

A party shares one run of a dungeon: one position, one fog, one alarm, one set of foes. Engine

• The leader walks the party. Only the leader moves it from room to room. When anyone else taps the map, it points that spot out to the party instead. Engine
• Everyone is there. Every hero stands with the party on the dungeon map and in its fights, and each hero gets their own suggested ways into each room. Engine
• Fights are party rounds, on a battle map drawn from the dungeon level. Engine
• Runs carry on. If a member already had a run of that dungeon under way, the party picks up from it. Your own run is kept, and is yours again if you leave the party. Engine
• Members who are offline wait above, at the place on the world map, rather than being carried in. Engine

When one member takes a job while the party is together, the members standing there are offered the same job, saying who took it. Anyone who joins gets the very same job. A step done on anyone's turn is done for all of them, and finishing it pays every member who is there. A member already on a job isn't offered a second one. Engine

Each member's personal story stays theirs: the truth about their own character, and the trail that leads to it, belong to them and aren't shared out. When people see the party together, word of the company, and its name, travels with it. Storyteller

Each player pays for their own turns from their own credits, in a party as anywhere else. Nobody pays for another player's turns, and a party has no shared wallet. Engine

• A fight round costs one credit from each player who acts in it. The round has one narration for everyone, but every hero who declares an action is charged one turn, so a round in which four players act costs four credits, one from each. Engine
• Guarding is free. A hero who doesn't declare, or is away, pays nothing for that round. A player who runs out of credits isn't held up: they guard that round instead, and the fight goes on. Engine
• A round the storyteller never narrates is given back to everyone it charged. Engine
• Outside a fight, a turn is paid by the player who wrote it. Members who ride along with the leader pay nothing for the trip, and pings and party chat are free. Engine
• Read-aloud costs one credit per narrated turn, paid by the first player in the room to play it. Anyone else who plays the same narration hears it free. Engine
• Lending a hand works the same way: a guest pays for the rounds they act in. Engine
• Some worlds don't use credits. In a world that runs on its builder's own AI key, nobody in the party pays. See Credits.

Two rules on the Studio's Rules tab shape parties in your world. Both are enforced in code. See World rules for the rest.