Dating Rules
Core Rules
d8 Night provides a short rules framework for everyone’s favourite RPG downtime activity - dating. In d8 Night you can take an NPC on a series of dates, get to know them better, and hopefully steadily gain their affections.This write-up specifically covers the rules of d8 Night in D&D 5e, but we hope that translation to other systems isn’t too challenging.
Each date features five constituent parts - ‘First Impressions’, ‘What’s the Date?’, ‘Breaking the Ice’, ‘Information Exchange’, and ‘The Finale’. Across these stages you will be instructed to build two pools of eight-sided dice known as the d8s of fate.
One of these (the +d8s) represents all the positive aspects of your date, whilst the other (the -d8s) represents all the bad, awkward or embarrassing bits.
At the end of the date you will roll both pools and find out how it went, and how your relationship with the NPC has changed.
Roll them right and you may find romance, but roll them wrong and you may end up dating so badly you make an enemy for life! Try it out and create your very own tale of dice-crossed lovers!
First Impressions
Every date starts with First impressions. Describe any pre-date preparation your character undertook and then play out the scene of meeting your partner for the date.First Impressions - Results
To represent the variability of initial reactions, you are always given +1d8 and -1d8 at the start of First Impressions.Alignment also plays a part - if you have opposed alignments, lawful vs. chaotic, or good vs. evil, take a -1d8. But if your alignments agree on any term take a +1d8.
If, for example, you were lawful evil and your date was lawful good you would take a +1d8 for agreeing on lawfulness and a -1d8 for disagreeing on good vs. evil.
Finally, your GM may award +1d8 or -1d8 depending upon circumstances leading up to the date, your preparation, any gifts given and/or your outfit choices.
What’s the Date?
This is the activity portion of the date. Maybe you’re going to a show, a pottery class, an underground fight ring, or the monthly ritual sacrifice by the cultists of Asmodeus?In any case, you should describe the scene, the activity and roleplay it out.
Once you have selected an activity, choose two skills or abilities which might be useful for participating in or enjoying the date.
For example, if your date involves some kind of sport, Athletics and Acrobatics might be sensible choices. Alternatively for a night of heavy drinking and singing bawdy songs together, it might be Performance and Constitution.
Both the NPC and the PC then independently roll checks using either of the selected skills to see how much they got from the evening’s entertainments. The mechanical implications of these checks are given in the What’s the Date - Results table. Remember to add d8s of fate that are gained from the both the NPC’s and the PC’s checks to the + dice pools.
What's the Date - Results
Breaking the Ice - Results
Breaking the Ice
This is the conversational portion of the date. Here you will while away the hours deep in meaningful conversation about life, the universe, and everything. Or maybe you’ll just get drunk and passionately discuss your favour- ite Waterdhavian Wrestling Federation storylines from two decades ago. Re- gardless of the specif- ics, good conversa- tion is a skill that relies on both participants.To see how well your tender talk goes, select one of the mental stats - Wisdom, Intelligence, or Charisma - to con-verse with. These represent a deep conversation, an intelligent conversa- tion, or a fun conversation, respectively.
Add together both the PC’s and NPC’s modifiers for this ability, roll 1d20 and then sum the results to give your Breaking the Ice check. The mechanical consequences of this check are given in the Breaking the Ice - Results table.
Add any d8s of fate gained to their respec- tive dice pools and any Questions Gained are used in the following Information Exchange section of the date.
Information Exchange
At this point in the date you get to know one another a little better and can spend the questions you gained in the Breaking the Ice portion of the date. These questions can be used to learn more about the likes and dislikes of your partner. Commonly this might include gift or activity preferences to help improve your performance in future dates, but you can ask anything you would like. The DM should answer honestly, as long as the NPC has no reason to be deceptive.An example of information exchange might be asking if your date likes the theatre or has a fa- vourite type of food, but alternatively you might just ask if they’d rather fight one dragon sized goblin, or 100 goblin sized dragons. The choice is yours!
The Finale
It’s the end of the date! It’s finally time to roll the d8s of fate and find out how the date went and whether your relationship has improved! The idea is simple - roll all d8s of fate you have acquired; those from the +d8 pool add to your overall score, whilst those from the -d8 pool subtract from it. An overall positive score suggests that you had a good date and a negative score implies that things went awry!Once you’ve rolled the dice, describe how you end the date and any follow-on. Remember, as always, to roleplay safe and only get as blue as your table is comfortable with!