🔑 The Airbnb Host

Who plays who

• A — The Host: you meet them at the door, you have the keys, and you give the tour.
• B — The Guest: you have just arrived, you are carrying a bag, and you decide when the tour ends.
• A leads Acts 1–3. B leads Act 4, because a guest is allowed to make themselves at home.

What you need

• A set of keys, or a key on a ring, to be handed over at the door
• A welcome tray — water, a glass, something small and folded
• Fresh towels, folded, one set only, as if for one guest
• A bag or a case for the guest to arrive with
• A planned tour route: hall, kitchen, living room, and then the bedroom

Act 1 — 🕯️ Setup

You arrive at the door with a bag and A opens it with the keys already in hand. The welcome is professional for about ten seconds and then it is not. The tour has a destination and you both know exactly what it is. The keys change hands at the threshold.

Beats

• A hands over the keys at the door and stays in host mode: listing details, wifi, the good coffee.
• B carries their own bag and does not put it down until A says where.
• The tour gets named out loud, room by room, before it starts.

Lines to say

• "Welcome. Let me take that — no, keep the bag, just follow me."
• "Kitchen first. Then the room you'll actually want to see."
• "If you need anything at all, ask. I'm not going anywhere."

Act 2 — 🔥 Build

The tour moves room by room and A gets more personal with each one: the kitchen where the good mornings happen, the window that gets the light. The pace drops with every doorway and the tour slows down rather than speeds up. By the sofa, the host voice is only just holding.

Beats

• A gives one real detail about their own life in every room, and it gets more honest each time.
• B stays close enough to touch and does not touch, for the whole act.
• The bedroom door gets pointed at, described, and then walked past.

Lines to say

• "This is the room I actually live in. Not the one in the photos."
• "That's the bedroom. I'll show you, but not yet."
• "You keep looking at that door. I noticed."

Act 3 — ⚡ Escalate

The bedroom door opens and it is your own door, in your own house, and there is nothing to check on the other side. The host stops talking and the room does the work. The towels go down on the end of the bed, because that is where a host puts them.

Beats

• A opens the door and steps back so B goes in first.
• A names one thing that is genuinely theirs in the room — the bed, the lamp, the side they sleep on.
• The listing voice is gone. Whatever is said now is said as themselves, still inside the game.

Lines to say

• "This is the bed. This is the side I sleep on."
• "Make yourself at home. I mean it."
• "You're the first guest I've wanted to stay."

Act 4 — 💥 Climax

The tour is over and the listing is closed. The bed is the host's own, the towels are folded at the end of it, and nothing about this room is for anyone but the two of you. The keys are somewhere in the hallway and neither of you is going to fetch them.

Beats

• Whatever the tour promised, room by room, gets used here, in order.
• The host stays the host and the guest stops being polite.
• Let it finish the way you both want, not the way a check-out time would have it.

Lines to say

• "Look at me. You're not a guest now."
• "Stay exactly there."

Act 5 — 🤍 Aftercare

The bed is made — badly — and the towels are somewhere on the floor. Two people again, in their own home, with the keys still in the hallway.

Beats

• Come back into your own names and stop being host and guest.
• Water, the folded towels actually put away, and the keys back on the hook.
• One thing each you liked, and one thing you want next time.

Lines to say

• "That was a very good tour. Thank you for the welcome."
• "Next time I want to be the one showing you around."

Aftercare

Keys back on the hook, water, and the towels actually put away in the morning. Say one thing you liked out loud, and tell whoever played the Host plainly that the welcome was wanted — and that they can stop being the host now.

Ground rules and consent

• This is our own home, or a place we have genuinely rented. There is no real host, no real guest and no stranger in the building.
• Nobody else is arriving later. The door is locked, the listing is closed, and there are no other guests upstairs.
• "Doorknob" ends the tour instantly, said by either of us, and the keys go back on the hook.
• The welcome is a game between the two of us. Nothing that happens here is part of a stay, an arrangement or a booking.

If you are unsure how to bring it up, Blindfold play has the wording.

Frequently asked