Privacy

It Starts at the Tavern is a fan-made tool for working out a tabletop character. This page says what it keeps about you and why. It keeps as little as it can.

What is kept

• Your answers and what you write. The sixty answers, the build you choose, and anything you type about your character: a name, a vow, the bones of a backstory. You are asked to answer as a character, not as yourself.
• If you sign in: the name, email address and profile picture address on your Google account. There is no password here to keep; Google does the signing in.
• If you do not: you are a guest. A random identifier is kept in a cookie so that this browser can find its own characters again. It is not linked to who you are. The address your request came from is used for a moment to limit how fast new guests can be made, and is not kept with your characters.
• Feedback you choose to send from the last page: two ratings and an optional comment.
• Counts of what was used, such as which build options were changed and which files were exported, to tune the questions. These are looked at in aggregate.

Cookies

Only what is needed to keep you signed in, or to keep a guest’s characters with their browser. One preference (whether the next question comes up on its own) is kept in your browser’s storage. There is no advertising, no analytics and no tracking across sites.

Who else handles it

• Vercel hosts the site and keeps short-lived request logs.
• Neon holds the database and the accounts, in the United States.
• Google, if you sign in: it tells this site who you are. It is not told what you do here.
• Anthropic, when its model is switched on for this site, for two things. When you finish the questions, the barkeep’s few lines about your character are written from the statements you answered, how you answered them, and the one line you wrote as your character’s vow. If you ask for name suggestions, the request carries the character’s species, class, background and archetype. Neither carries your name, your email or anything else you typed.

Nothing is sold or shared with anyone else.

Share links

A character has a share link that you choose whether to give out. Anyone who has the link can read that character’s card and dossier. They cannot change it or see anything else of yours.

Deleting things

• Remove any character from the list of your characters. It is deleted at once, with its answers.
• Delete your account from your account page. Your email and everything kept with the account is deleted at once.
• A guest can delete everything their browser made from the same page, and a guest’s characters are deleted automatically once they have gone unused for 90 days.

Children

This tool is not directed at children under 13, and accounts are not meant for them.

Questions

Ask whoever gave you the link to this site.