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The Tea Road: a contemplative solo role-playing game

The Tea Road is a solo role-playing game written by Dominik Marchand. You play a travelling tea merchant and keep her travel journal: an ordinary deck of 52 cards decides what she passes through, and you write down what she takes from it. A full game runs two to three hours, on your own, with no game master and no group, right in your browser.

  • Free
  • No account
  • In your browser
  • At your own pace
Start a game

2 to 3 hours, in one or more sittings.

How you play

  1. You lay out your route.

    The game builds a reduced deck out of a 52-card pack. You do not know what is in it, or in what order.

  2. You draw a card, and it asks you a question.

    A heart is an event that lifts or lowers your fortune. A diamond is a landscape, leaving you two words to keep in mind for later. A club is a customer stopping at the stall.

  3. You write.

    One line or two pages, nobody is counting. The question is only a prompt and you remain free to tell something else.

  4. The customers come back.

    Every infusion served slips a spade into the deck. When it comes out, that customer passes by again, changed by what you served her.

  5. The ace of spades ends the journey.

    You choose how the road comes to an end, and your journal is complete.

Content warnings

This game deals with the following subjects.

  • anxiety
  • critters
  • abusive working conditions
  • politics
  • family problems
  • religion
  • vertigo

Your well-being comes before the rules

You can skip any card, write something entirely different from what it suggests, or stop playing whenever you want. Nothing obliges you to follow a question that makes you uncomfortable.

I X-carded myself…

About The Tea Road: a contemplative solo role-playing game

The Tea Road is a journaling solo role-playing game: one player alone, a deck of cards as the randomiser, and a journal kept in the first person. Dominik Marchand published it under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, which is what allows this digital adaptation. JDR Ninja offers a playable version in French, English, Spanish, German and Italian, free and without an account.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to know role-playing games to play?
No. The Tea Road is played with no game master, no group and no rules to memorise: the game draws the cards, tracks your fortune and asks you one question at a time. If you can write a few sentences, you can play.
How long does a game take?
Two to three hours for a full game, which does not have to happen in one sitting. The game is saved in your browser and you pick it up where you left off.
Do I need an account, a subscription or a deck of cards?
None of those. The game is free, requires no sign-up and supplies its own cards. You need a browser, and something to write with if you prefer paper.
Can I write in a real notebook rather than in the app?
Yes. At the start of the game you choose to write in the app or in your notebook. In notebook mode the screen only draws the cards and tracks the game, and at the end it prints a sheet to keep with your pages.
What happens to my journal?
It stays in your browser and is sent nowhere. You can reread it whenever you want, print it, and download it as a PDF to keep.
Who wrote The Tea Road?
Dominik Marchand, who publishes it on itch.io under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. This online version is an adaptation made by JDR Ninja, permitted by that licence. The original game is itself inspired by LEADS, by Nicolas Ronvel.

Play

2 to 3 hours, in one or more sittings.

Start a game

Credits and licence

Original game by Dominik Marchand, published under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Get the original game on itch.io and discover the author’s other games.

Based on LEADS by Nicolas Ronvel (CC BY 3.0). Inspired by Last Tea Shop by Spring Villager.

This text was adapted and translated by JDR Ninja for this online version.

This game was written in French. This version is a machine translation and may contain mistakes. Read the French version