The Director Welcomes You

Productions Royale

#058327

Location

Windless, Warm Panama

Time of Day

24:5

Extraction Point

144 Miles SE

Time to Complete

28 Hours

Meddlers,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Wardrobe that has been hollowed out. Get to Panama at 00:20

Good Luck.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Nora Holland

Alias

"Big Dragon"

Features

5' 7"

Amber eyes

Faint curved scar / Crotch

Organization

The Guild of Spoiled Noose

Emotions

Uncomfortable

Personality

Closely Mushy

Motive

Take over a country to control the Children

Bodyguard

Harrison the "Hirsute Whale"

Physical Size

Full

Story

Additional Locations

The Risible Isle

Rundown Villa

Darkness Acropolis

Random Events

Vegetable is loose

German Trench Club Protests

Dead Animal Becomes wounded

Nomad approaches

World

Stores

Josiah's Wardrobe Productions

Dixon's Telescope Bureau

Johnson's Music Box Market

Hughes's Music Box Department store

Traps

Arrow

Lightning Bolt of Ice

Objects

Wardrobe that has been hollowed out

Music Box that has been hollowed out

Secret Telescope

Hidden Ring

Banana of Ice

Wand of Wonder

Undead tend to ignore the caster until he acts against them

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Addison Dixon "Short Fingers" Merchant Soup Paperclips
Guy Johnson "Meaty Toes" Mole Easter Flashlights
Bryson Dean Spirit Paper Octopus
Josiah Russell Sad Photography Washing Machines
Jesus Hughes Indifferent Death Harmonica

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).