The Director Welcomes You

The Old Collar Cliffhanger

#5f448b

Location

Dry, Icy Sri Lanka

Time of Day

1:35

Extraction Point

70 Miles SW

Time to Complete

3 Hours

Investigators,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Statuette that has been hollowed out. Get to Sri Lanka at 15:23

Good Luck.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Greyson Hall

Alias

"Little Kaiju"

Features

5' 5"

Heterochromia eyes

Faint curved scar / Crotch

Organization

The Unit of Mysterious Earrings

Emotions

Numb

Personality

Kindheartedly Avian

Motive

Take over a government to control the Children

Bodyguard

Harold the "Worn Turtle"

Physical Size

Giant

Story

Additional Locations

The Old Barn Dance

Polluted Forge

Obsession Palace

Random Events

Nearby Gas Tank strikes the ground

Herd of Chicken Is throwing a BBQ

German Trench Club strikes the ground

Gang gathers near a point of interest

World

Stores

Nicholas's Statuette Arcade

Wolfe's Large book Collective

Stevenson's Trinket Du jour

Schultz's Skeletal Animal Labs

Traps

Javelin

Floor Net of Prosperity

Objects

Statuette that has been hollowed out

Trinket that is glowing

Secret Large book

Hidden Stave

Lipstick of Prosperity

Wand of Wonder

Once per day, caster can teleport up to one foot per level

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Ariel Wolfe "Three Toes" Merchant Tissues Dice
Avery Stevenson "Fat Knuckles" Mole Water Potatoes
Jade Webster Dead Tired Water Toilets
Nicholas Neal Chef Technology Glass
Kai Schultz Intoxicated Coffee Cats

Cipher



                

                
 
                

                

                

                

                

                

The Fuck Is This?

After years of playing Dungeons & Dragons, I decided to make a variation where everything is improv. The DM knows as much as the players and you tell a story together - sitcom style. We use this site as a quest starter, think of some characters, and see how much we can make each other laugh.

It's designed to be simple, portable, and dependent on being creative & inventive. I wanted a framework to guide the plot forward but let us find the story. This page is just a guide to help the stories become too redundant - take as much as you want, ignore as much as you need. If you want to follow along with our adventures or read some examples, check out my personal story notes.

This concept and site was crafted by Andrew Maruska with linguistic help from Evan Stark

But how?

The Most Important Rule

Be Silly. The goal is to laugh not to have a normal adventure. Someone wants to go to the moon? Fuck yeah they do and we're going to do it with medieval technology.

Set Up

Give the players a home base, a year they want to play in, and some general ownership of the setup. It's more successful when everyone has helped create the world because when a player makes suggestions it's easier to integrate them without feeling too precious. It helps to have a figurehead that assigns the quest to authoritatively start.

Characters

90% of creating a character here is a funny voice you're forced to talk in for 3 hours. I typically have people pick one trait they want to be good at and give them a slight advantage when using that - and the same for a negative trait. Don't overcomplicate it. They wanna be a skateboarder who can't feel love? perfect. +2 to cool & -2 to social acceptance.

Rolling

This can be whatever you want but as a general rule I use d20's as a graded scale. Sometimes, I craft the roll to mimic the action i.e. if they are walking a tight rope then might need to roll a 10 because 20 & 1 make them fall to one side or the other. Rolling in D&D got boring so make it fun again.

Dungeon Master

Your goal is to say 'Yes and...' but realistically it's 'Yes and roll to see if you can actually do that triple backflip down the cliff to mount the attacking phoenix...' - It's okay to make them fail, just don't tell them no. This guide is to help you be 1 step ahead of the players but it can't know the vibe of the room, have some empathy and play to the crowd.

Ending

No one can tell you this. The guide is to help you get 1/3 of the adventure set up and the rest will be created by the adventuring party. Have fun with it and try to tie up some loose ends at the end (or don't and bring them back for another adventure).