Twenty Faces
Everything you need to host a night. No experience required.
Written for people who have never touched a twenty-sided die. Read it in ten minutes. Learn it in one. If you can tell a story about your day, you can play this game.
The game itself teaches as you play. This book just makes you the host who already knows.
Chapter one · The idea
One player faces a dramatic moment: a dragon's cave, a heist gone sideways, a king's courtroom. They announce what they're attempting, roll a hidden number that decides how well it goes, and then act out the result without ever saying the number. Everyone else studies the performance and guesses how big it really landed. That's the whole game.
Then you are exactly who this book was written for. Set aside everything you think a "dice game" involves. There is no game master. There are no character sheets, no stat blocks, no math homework, no rules lawyer, and nothing to memorize. Never played Dungeons & Dragons? Perfect. Neither have most tables who play this.
Twenty Faces is closer to charades than to anything with a rulebook this thick usually attached. Except in charades you act out a word. Here, you act out how well something went, and your friends try to read you. The tension isn't lying. It's how hard it is to be read, and how good it feels when someone reads you perfectly.
"d20" is just shorthand for a die with twenty faces, numbered 1 to 20. In this game, one roll decides how big a moment is: 1 is utter ruin, 20 is the stuff of legend.
Chapter two · What you need
Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, nothing to buy. The game runs free in any browser at play.twentyfaces.app, on one shared phone or on everyone's.
Two works. Four to six sings. Eight is glorious chaos. The game adjusts its own length to your headcount.
Pass a single phone around the table, or everyone joins on their own with a five-letter code. Both are the full game.
A standard night is a tight half hour and change. Pick Quick for a taster or Epic for a saga. You choose at setup.
No reading ahead for your guests, no setup pieces, no cleanup. The app deals everything and walks the table through its first round.
Bigger tables get fewer cards because every card is one full lap of the table: each player takes one turn performing per card. The game suggests the right count automatically. Quick trims it, Epic stretches it, and you can fine-tune by hand.
Chapter three · The heart of it
Every turn, the player holding the die does these three things. Then the table reads them. Learn this and you have learned the game.
Say out loud what you're going for: the bold attempt, not how it ends. Now the whole table knows what to watch for.
"I vault the banquet table and snatch the crown off his head."
Roll the d20 where no one else can see it. Only you know how big it landed: a fumble, a triumph, or anything between.
The screen shows you, and only you, a 6.
Play the scene to match your roll. The table reads the moment, never the number, and the closest read takes the Glory.
"I clear the table... mostly. My boot catches the gravy boat."
Then comes the part that makes it a game. Everyone else locks in a guess from 1 to 20: how big do they think that hidden roll really was? The die shows, the sharpest reads score, and the next player takes the die.
Beats 1 through 4 repeat for every player around the table. Each scene card is one full lap: when the last player has told, their roll turns the card, and the night moves to the next scene.
Four friends. The Fantasy world. Maya has the die. Step through her turn exactly as the night would play it.
Fantasy · Scene card
Heat rolls out of the cave mouth, and gold runs ankle-deep over the bones of everyone who came before you. Somewhere in the dark, scale slides on scale, slow as a tide. A loose coin rings on stone, and the breathing stops. Two eyes the color of furnace-light open and find the lot of you.
Everyone reads the card. It's Maya's turn to step into it. Nobody knows how her moment will go yet, including her.
Chapter four · The twenty sizes
This is the game's shared language, and it's the same ladder the app shows at the table. Tellers use it to size their performance. Readers use it to decode one. Slide through it.
The version they retell for years. Effortless, impossible, unforgettable.
It lands well. Heads turn. The room takes genuine notice.
It works, cleanly enough. A nod, not a roar. The first real success.
Falls short. Not a disaster, not a win. Something breaks the wrong way.
It goes wrong. Damage done, dignity gone. But you're still upright.
The worst the moment can be. It fails, and it costs you something.
This is not a bluffing game. When you roll a 6, your job is to perform an honest 6: not to fake a 20 and fool the table. The teller and the table are on the same side of a delicate craft. You try to be readable. They try to read you. The game gets richer the better everyone gets at it, and the scoring rewards exactly that.
And you never say the number. Not a wink, not "somewhere in the teens," nothing. The performance is the only clue the table gets. Numbers stay sealed until the reveal.
Chapter five · Glory
Glory ✦ is the game's only score, and reading well is how you earn it. At the reveal, every guess is measured against the secret roll.
The single closest reader also earns the closing seat when the card turns: the honor of telling last on the next scene. If two readers tie for closest, nobody claims it and the seats simply rotate.
Your Glory as the teller mirrors the sharpest read of your performance. If someone reads you exactly, you both bank 3. A performance clear enough to be read pays the performer. Big moments carry their own shine as well: a roll of 10 or better hands the teller a bonus +1, and a natural 20 hands them +2.
If every reader locks in and all of them land within 2 of the roll, the table resonates: everyone's Glory for the turn doubles and a streak begins. Each turn the streak holds piles an extra +1 on the whole party. A table reading in sync is the highest gear in the game.
Once per game, each player may replace a normal guess with a declared exact call. Nail it and the whole table's Glory doubles while you take +5. Miss and you score nothing this turn, though the party's streak rides on its own reads. Spend it on a performance you can read cold.
Set Maya's secret roll and the table's three reads. Watch the Glory fall exactly as the app would score it.
| Player | Read | Off by | Glory |
|---|
Doubling shown is the first Resonance of a streak. Held streaks add +1 to everyone on top. The Oracle's Gambit rides on top of all of this.
Chapter six · A full night
Here is the whole evening, start to finish. The app walks the table through every one of these steps itself, so nobody needs this memorized. Least of all your guests.
Someone opens play.twentyfaces.app in a browser and taps New Game. First-timers can tap Learn to Play instead for the in-app primer, but you won't need it after this book.
One device passed around, everyone on their own phone, or alone. Chapter eight covers all three. For a first night with friends in one room, either of the first two is perfect.
Twenty worlds come free: Fantasy, Pirates, Heist, Zombies, Detective Noir, Ancient Egypt, and fifteen more. Each brings its own classes, items, and scene cards. Can't decide? Roll the d20 on the world screen and let fate choose. "The die is cast."
Type in everyone's names (2 to 8). The game then suggests a card count for your table size: Quick, Standard, or Epic. For 4 players that's 2, 3, or 5 cards. Remember: one card means every player tells once.
The app deals every player a class and two items from the world, at random. Your Knight with a Lute of Charm is the night's first joke and the story's first thread. Chapter seven explains what they're for.
Before the first scene, the game shows "How a round turns": the same five-beat wheel from chapter three. Anyone can reopen it mid-game from the book icon in the corner, along with the size ladder and the Sage, the in-game tutor.
Scene by scene, lap by lap: call your shot, roll in secret, perform it that big, read, reveal, pass the die. Between cards, the world occasionally interrupts with an Event or a passing sting. Chapter nine has those.
When the last card turns, the player with the most Glory wears the crown. Then the whole table gets judged together: your party's shared performance earns a rank, from a shameful start to legend.
Win or lose alone, you're ranked together, by how much Glory the whole table pulled per telling. Chase the top one as a team.
When the night ends, the game can export a Tale: a printable record of who rolled bold, who read the room, and how the story turned. Proof the night happened, and a reason to play again. You can also forge a character of your own from the title screen and carry it between game nights with a share code.
Chapter seven · Your character
Your character is story fuel, not math. Nothing on these cards adds or subtracts from any roll. They exist to make your shots easier to call and funnier to perform.
Each world has eight classes, and you're dealt one. It's a personality, a costume, and a suggestion all at once. When you call your shot, let your class color it: a Knight charges the dragon, a Bard tries to compliment it into submission.
Fantasy · Class
Talks the party into trouble, then sings them back out.
Charm · Lore · Audacity
Fantasy · Class
Sworn blade and shield wall. Holds the line when others break.
Valor · Heavy Combat · Honor
You're dealt two. Each is a single line with an edge hidden in it, because every item in this game gives with one hand and takes with the other. When it's your telling, you may brandish one and weave it into your shot. How it plays out is up to your roll and your imagination.
Every world swaps in its own eight classes, its own armory of items, and its own deck of scenes, so Pirates plays nothing like Detective Noir, and Cowboys plays nothing like Eldritch Horror. Twenty are free forever. Five more, Space Opera, Mystery, Wasteland, Kingdoms, and Wrestlers, are out now as honest one-time buys. Browse the whole wall of crests.
Chapter eight · Ways to play
Same game, three tables. Pick the one that matches your night.
Everyone plays on their own phone. The room stays synced: same scene, same reveal, same gasp. This is also how you play remotely; pair it with any video call.
On your turn, your phone alone shows your secret roll. Everyone else's phone becomes their private guessing slate. Life happens, so the game covers for it: if a teller's phone goes dark mid-turn or someone wanders off, the table can vote to move the night along, and anyone who drops can rejoin with the same code and reclaim their seat.
One phone or tablet in the middle of the table. Cozy, zero-friction, perfect for kitchens, campfires, and airplanes.
Someone needs to leave early, or a new friend arrives mid-night? The teller order can be reshuffled at any time from the turn screen.
One player, one story, same skill. In Solo the roles flip: the game hides the roll and performs the moment in prose, and you are the reader. You set your read on a 1-to-20 dial, painted with the same six size bands from chapter four.
Solo is a sharpening stone: ten minutes of it makes you noticeably better at reading a live table.
Chapter nine · Between the cards
When a card turns, the night occasionally interrupts itself. These moments are played out by the table, by hand, on the honor system. The roll you can't see stays sacred; this is everything around it.
Event
A scarred sell-sword falls in beside you and asks for a cut of the next job. She has the look of someone who's worth it, or someone who's robbed a hundred parties just like yours.
She rides along for the next Adventure. After it resolves, roll the d20 in the open. 10–20: loyal. The round's Glory winner takes +2; describe how she turned the tide. 1–9: treachery. The winner takes none; describe her betrayal.
Resolve it at the table. Any Glory change is yours to track: the app keeps its own tally.
An Event is a full interruption: read it aloud, do what it says, argue about it, love it. Some ask for an open roll, some hand out dares, some rearrange who's winning. The app deliberately doesn't enforce them. The table does, together.
"Three days of dead ends later, the file is thicker and the truth is no nearer."
A sting: one passing line between scenes. Say it, feel it, continue.Stings are lighter: a single line of connective tissue, sometimes with a blank the table fills in aloud. A breath between scenes, not a rule.
Chapter ten · Table manners
Everything here keeps the game generous. None of it is enforced by the app, because it doesn't need to be.
The teller's craft is honesty at the rolled size. The table's craft is attention. Nobody is trying to trick anybody; that's what makes a perfect read feel like telepathy.
Shy players are welcome here. "I reach for the crown... and my sleeve catches fire" delivered flat is a complete, readable telling. Nobody has to stand up, do voices, or be theatrical. How you say it carries plenty.
On any middling roll (4 through 17), the teller can privately tap for a Whisper: a one-line nudge like a complication to fold in, or a push to play it bigger. It never reveals the number, and only the teller sees it. Extremes get no help; a 1 and a 20 explain themselves.
A telling should be a moment, not a monologue. Twenty seconds of committed performance beats three minutes of winding up. The app nudges long turns gently, and a live table can always vote a stalled one forward.
Play events double, skip the streaks, let the youngest player re-roll once a night, whatever your table loves. The app tracks the official tally; your table owns the truth.
Chapter eleven · Questions
No. Nothing. This game borrows exactly one object from that world, the twenty-sided die, and uses it for something entirely different. There's no game master, no rules to memorize, and no wrong way to perform a moment. If anything, total newcomers are often the best readers at the table.
You have to describe a moment; how theatrically is entirely up to you. One dry sentence with the right amount of wince in it is a great telling. Some of the best players never leave their chair.
Never. Twenty Faces has no bluffing. The teller performs the number they actually rolled, as truly as they can. The challenge, and all the comedy, lives in the gap between what they meant to attempt and how big it actually landed. You're reading a moment, not calling a bluff.
They both keep the Glory they earned, but nobody claims the closing seat; the turn order just carries on. The closing seat only ever goes to a single sharpest read.
No. In Live games the table can vote a stalled turn forward after a grace period, so one sleeping phone never soft-locks the night. A dropped player rejoins with the room code and reclaims their seat. In Pass & Play you can hand the teller seat to someone else at any time from the turn screen.
Yes. Live mode is built for it: share the room code, then run any video call alongside so you can watch each other perform. The performances need faces; the game handles everything else.
Comfortably. The rules are learnable in a minute and there's nothing unsavory built into the game. Scenes are dramatic in the campfire sense: dragons, heists, haunted crypts. Pick the world to match the room, and note that kids are frequently terrifying readers of adults.
Nothing you need. The free game is the whole game: twenty worlds, every way to play, every rule in this book, forever, with no ads and no trackers. If your table falls in love, five new worlds are $3 each (or $10 for all five), and a More Everything pack deepens the base twenty with extra items, classes, and scenes. One-time buys, yours for keeps.
A Standard game at 4 players runs 3 cards, which is 12 tellings: roughly 25–35 minutes. Quick fits in a lunch break; Epic is the whole evening. You'll know your table's pace after one night.
Any device with a browser works: iPhone, Android, laptop, tablet, in any mix. Nothing installs, nothing syncs to an account, nobody signs up. Open the link, type a name, play.
Each world scores itself with its own ambient bed, built into the game. It's mood, not mechanics. One tap on the speaker icon silences it.
Chapter twelve · The cheat sheet
Keep this open at the table, or print it and leave it by the snacks. It's the whole game.
Table reference · twentyfaces.app/rulebook
Then everyone else locks a read, 1 to 20, and the die reveals.
Exact 3 · within 1 2 · within 2 1 · further off 0. The single closest read earns the closing seat on the next card (ties: nobody). The teller banks the best read's points, +1 if the roll was 10 or better, +2 on a natural 20.
Everyone locks in and every read lands within 2: all Glory doubles and a streak begins. Each turn it holds adds +1 to the whole party. Broken streaks reset to zero.
Declare an exact number instead of a normal read. Hit: the table's Glory doubles and you take +5. Miss: you score 0 this turn; the party's streak rides on its own reads.
Each scene card = one telling per player. Last teller's roll turns the card. Play all cards; most Glory wears the crown, and the party earns its shared rank. Events and stings between cards are played out by hand, on honor.
That's the whole book
Pick a world. Roll in secret. Let the table read you.