Viva la QueerBar

The Game

Viva la QueerBar is a slice-of-life story game about a queer bar (or queer café) and the team who runs it. It's a game about the pleasures and struggles of being part of a queer community.

Whether as a fantasy medieval tavern, a cyberpunk underground club, a real-world gay bar in a historical setting, an intergalactic queer bar on a spaceship, or anything else you can think of – the QueerBar lives wherever you want it to.

All you need to play is this zine, a regular deck of playing cards (52 cards), and 1-5 people to play with you. No preparation necessary – just start playing!

Viva la QueerBar is great for complete newbies to role-playing games and fun for experienced TTRPG players alike. It welcomes players of all genders and orientations who are willing to take on the perspective of a queer character for the duration of the game. Since this is a story game more than a role-playing game, however, you will spend more time describing your character's thoughts, feelings, and actions than you will acting as your character.

In 2023, the German version of Viva la QueerBar won a Crystal Stephan (places 4-10) for Best Role-Playing Game in the "Publikumspreis für Eskapismus, Nerdkultur & Phantastik (PEN&P)", short "Goldener Stephan" (Public Choice Award for Escapism, Nerd Culture, and Fantasy).

The Rules

Viva la QueerBar is a stand-alone tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) for 2-6 players (no GM), conveniently packaged as a handy zine and perfect for no-prep one-shots of about 2-4 hours play time.

The rules of this Descended from the Queen story game are very simple: At first you read the short instructions out loud together. The text has our recommended consent and safety tools already built-in. During that introduction, you also choose the rough setting of your QueerBar.

Then the core game starts: You take turns drawing a playing card and looking up the question associated with it in the random tables. Over the course of the game, your individual QueerBar, your main characters, some side characters, and details about the surroundings of the QueerBar develop through your answers to the questions.

In the end, all main characters answer: What is your most important wish for the future of the QueerBar?

Due to the random selection and order of the questions (you'll typically use around half of them during a 3-hour game) and the huge variability of possible settings, you can play Viva la QueerBar again and again and have a different experience each time.