The Director Welcomes You

Data, Lace, Headquarters, Spy.

#ddfa13

Location

Hot, Arid Ireland

Time of Day

20:56

Extraction Point

73 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

35 Hours

Detectives,
I have sent you to circle a Deserted Crypt to look for a suspect by the name "Stiff child". This mission is anti-surveillance. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to retrieve their missile codes. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The group finds a sword in a stone at the graveyard".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Fluffy Ladder in your kit to help.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Cameron Cruz

Alias

"Stiff child"

Features

6' 1"

Blue eyes

Faint curved scar / Right foot

Organization

The Order of Bloody Headquarters

Emotions

Sad

Personality

Utterly Small

Motive

Take over a country because of grief and loss

Bodyguard

Ralphie the "Fried Bear"

Physical Size

Baby

Story

Additional Locations

The Elegant Manor

Compact Reef

Excitement Carousal

Random Events

Bank Salutes the adventurers

Milk Shipment is robbed

Chicken chase a suspect

Panhandler explodes

World

Stores

Cameron's Flower in Vase Couture

Chandler's Crate Wardrobe

Green's Mural Collective

Wise's Shelf of alcohol Chic Chåteau

Traps

Razor-Wire across Hallway

Symbol of Hypnosis of Death

Objects

Flower in Vase made of heavy metal

Mural made of heavy metal

Secret Crate

Hidden Katana

Book of Death

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s next Summoning yields the last thing that he expects

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Ella Chandler "Fat Cappuccinos" Merchant Flowers Bells
Antonio Green "Bullet Ankles" Mole Football Chocolate
Londyn Cobb Plumber Soap Cookies
Cameron Harrison Funeral Director Christmas Bracelets
Emilia Wise Cheerful Limes Toilets

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).