„The Dream Date“ is a romantic journaling game for one or two players about the first few dates in a new potential relationship. All you need to have is the following:
- A set of Poker cards (without Jokers)
- Twelve six-sided dice
- If you want two additional six-sided dice as „Dream“ and „Nightmare“ dice.
That’s basically it. You start off by creating two characters. Each player character has six dice that are their dice pool, meaning, the player rolls all dice at once and then chooses how to place the dice for the six characteristics of the character. Say you have rolled a 1 and a 2.
| 1d6 | Personality | Hobbies |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Extroverted and sociable | Sports and Fitness |
| 2 | Introverted and thoughtful | Arts, Culture, Music |
In this simple example, you could either choose to have someone extroverted and sociable who likes arts, culture and music, while the second choice could be introverted and thoughtful who likes sports and fitness. With six dice and six characteristics, there are much more possibilities to choose from. If this is done for both players, continue with the final step for the character creation: How did the both of them meet. You’ll roll two d6’s and determine from there, in which situation both have met for the first time.
Then, the game play look starts. Three dates, twelve dice, four things that determine the date:
- Date Activity
- Date Highlight
- Date Complication
- Date Conclusion
All cards are shuffled into decks according to their signs Heart, Clubs, Diamond, Spades. Draw a card from each deck to determine the random table that will be used for this date. Once this is done, take four dice out of the dice pool and spend them according to the things shown at the random tables.
To add some spice, after each turn of an Activity, Highlight and Complication, throw the Dream and Nightmare dice to determine if this part of the date will make the date unforgettable or infamous. For example, let’s assume our pair has decided to have a picnic. If the Dream die has a higher value than the Nightmare die, they might be enjoying an amazing, uninterrupted date in the wild, with a fantastic view … or in the other case are constantly attacked by bees, loud kids playing around, while their parents run after them frantically. It’s up to you to decide what a dream and a nightmare could be in this scenario.
You can count those dream and nightmare scenarios and can determine at the end of the three dates if the pair will stay together… or call it quits.
Or maybe you want to roll another set of four dice for another date…
… and another date…
It’s up to you, how to play out this new love. And that’s „The Dream Date“. Created as part of DriveThruRPG’s 2025 PocketQuest challenge, now available here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/de/product/519644/the-dream-date