How It All Works

The one-sentence version

RNGESUS is a tabletop platform built around tap-to-roll dice: 3D-printed key fobs with an NFC tag inside, each with its own ID. You tap one with your phone, the app produces a roll for that die, and the number lands wherever you were pointing it — a character sheet, a VTT scene, your roll history.

The dice are physical. The rolls are digital. Your phone is the bridge. Nobody watches a die tumble across a table and reads the top face — that's a different product, and a much harder one.

You do not need dice to start

Worth saying early, because it's the thing people assume. Every part of the site works without a single tag:

• /virtual-roller — pick a die, roll it, no account needed at all.
• /dice?tab=roller — the same thing once you're logged in, except the results are recorded.
• Characters, the VTT, the tavern, the social side: all of it works on virtual rolls.

The tags make it tactile and give each physical object its own luck history. They are not a paywall on the app.

The first ten minutes

1. Log in. Logging in puts you at /table, which is a tavern rather than a dashboard. That's deliberate — see The Tavern. There's a notice the first night explaining the room.

2. Pull up a chair. The button says exactly that. Sitting down means you're staying a while, and it's what switches on the drinks-and-dozing business. Getting up puts you back in the room, not out of the door.

3. Say something. The composer under the fire posts into the room's log. On a wide screen the log lives in a rail down the side; on a phone it's in place at the hearth. Same stream either way.

4. Read the notice board. The Quest Board at the top of /table is campaigns looking for players and players looking for campaigns. Game Tables below it is the tables that already exist, drawn with the people sitting at them.

5. Roll something. Anything. This matters more than it sounds: the achievement engine's only event is a roll, so an achievement about the state of your account — you registered a die, you joined a table — is awarded on your next roll rather than the instant it happens. Achievements are how coppers get into your purse, so a first roll is also a first payday.

Then, if you have dice

Registering a tag is a phone job. Scanning and writing NFC needs the native app, so the web Add New Dice button honestly just points you at the store. See Your Dice for what a tag holds and how to claim one.

Being honest about the state of things

• The iOS app is not on TestFlight yet, which is the main thing standing between "I read about tap-to-roll" and "I tapped a die." There's an Android client too, maintained separately.
• The VTT works and is genuinely usable for a session — maps, grid, fog of war with line of sight, initiative — and is also still visibly a work in progress. Whisper messages and multi-select tokens are the two Phase 2 items that never got built.
• Plenty of the tavern shipped in a single day, which is a fine way to build a room and a poor way to make sure every corner of it is furnished. If something looks unfinished, it might be.

Where else to look

This is the play side of things. The Help Centre at /help is the other half and answers a different sort of question: installing the app, your account and profile, orders and shipping, and what to do when something is actually broken. If you have a problem rather than a question, start there.