WhywebuiltDiceDelveintent-first,notlocation-first

Most apps that help people meet up start with a map. They show you who is nearby. You scroll, you tap, you wave. The map is the product.

DiceDelve doesn't work like that. Our map shows meetup intents — short, public signals that someone wants to play a specific game at a specific time — not people. You never see where another user "is." You see what they want to do.

We call this "intent-first, not location-first," and it's the single biggest design decision in the product. It shaped everything else. DiceDelve is built around exactly this idea — see how the meetup map works.

Why "who is nearby" is the wrong question

If you've tried to organize a Dungeons & Dragons group, a board game night, or a Warhammer table, you've probably noticed: the problem isn't discovering that other tabletop players exist. You know they do. There are millions. The problem is finding someone who wants to play the same game, around the same time, as close to you as practical.

A map of nearby users answers the wrong question. It tells you who exists. It doesn't tell you who wants to play tonight.

So we asked: what if the app starts from willingness, not presence?

What an intent looks like

An intent is lightweight on purpose. It has four pieces:

1. A game. Dungeons & Dragons 5e. Gloomhaven. Warhammer 40k. Magic: The Gathering.
2. A rough time. "Saturday evening," not "7:43 PM."
3. A place you picked on the map. Separate from your personal location.
4. A short note. "Looking for 2 more. Beginner friendly. Dice provided."

Post an intent and it shows up as a marker on a shared map, inside a city-level radius. Anyone can see it. Anyone can join.

The moment someone joins, a group chat opens. The intent is both a discovery primitive and a conversation space. You don't need to DM strangers — the chat is public-by-default. You just talk about the plan.

What we chose not to show

A lot of what makes DiceDelve work is what is missing.

• No user dots on the map. Map markers represent intents only — specific, public, time-bounded invitations to play. Nothing else.
• No real-time tracking. We do not track or display where anyone is, ever.
• No precise coordinates per user. You set a city, and that's all we store.
• No approval step to join. Joining an intent is the signal — no "request to join" dance.

Each of these is a deliberate subtraction. Showing who is nearby would make the app feel more "alive" in shallow metrics. It would also make a lot of people uncomfortable, and it wouldn't actually help them find games.

Social proof without surveillance

The one case where "users nearby" matters is the early-stage problem: an empty map. If you open DiceDelve and see zero intents, you might assume nobody in your area plays. The truth is usually the opposite — they exist, they just haven't posted yet.

To bridge that gap without opening the surveillance floodgates, we added a Nearby Users feature: a count of players in your coarse area, with anyone who has an active meetup boosted to the top. No precise distances. No GPS. Just an honest "you are not alone here" signal.

It's social proof by aggregate, not by tracking.

The tradeoffs, plainly

Being intent-first means DiceDelve is slower than a dating-style map app during quiet times. On a Tuesday afternoon, there may be zero intents in your city. That's a feature, not a bug — it's accurate. It means nobody has said "let's play" yet. You can be the first.

It also means the core loop of the app is a weekly rhythm, not a daily one. You post an intent on Monday, people join through the week, you play on Saturday. That's slower than an app designed to be scrolled every commute. Which is fine. We're not trying to be scrolled every commute.

Why privacy is not the opposite of convenience

A common assumption in app design is that privacy and convenience trade off: more tracking means smoother UX. For some apps, that's true.

For a tabletop-meetup app, it's mostly false. We don't need your real-time location to help you find a game. We need your coarse area and your stated interest. Everything else is surveillance for its own sake.

Privacy-first isn't a slow-road version of a tracking-heavy app. It's a better-designed version, specifically for this use case. We wrote more about the privacy architecture here.

The test: does it fit a tabletop rhythm?

Tabletop games have a specific social shape. You pick a date and time a few days ahead. You confirm the morning of. You show up. You play for a few hours. You go home. Maybe you plan the next one.

DiceDelve is built around that rhythm, not an always-on notification feed. Intents mature over a few days. The group chat fills in slowly. The plan firms up. Then you play.

That's the product. A map of willingness instead of a map of people. A short list of concrete plans instead of an endless scroll.

It's quieter. We think it's kinder. And in our experience, it's what actually gets people from "we should play" to Saturday night at a real table.

Try it

Post a meetup intent in under a minute. See who wants to play what you want to play, nearby, this week. Get the app on iOS or Android.