The Director Welcomes You

The Judgementally Gregorian Agent

#b56f85

Location

Calm, Calm Sierra Leone

Time of Day

21:59

Extraction Point

118 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

19 Hours

Snoopers,
It seems "Green Manticore" has gone level 7. They have been broadcasting this message "A shadow passes at the Dead Forest". We need you to eliminate them, Judgementally. Their last known location was recorded at 09:09. You have a Colorful Clamp as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Maya Miller

Alias

"Green Manticore"

Features

4' 8"

Brown eyes

Large moles / Right arm

Organization

The Guild of Plump Tattoo

Emotions

Disliked

Personality

Judgementally Round

Motive

Make a lot of money to escape their destiny

Bodyguard

Billy the "Chunky Ghost"

Physical Size

Full

Story

Additional Locations

The Gregorian Spring

Abandoned Lake

Joy Masquerade

Random Events

German Trench Club grabs a lady's purse

Box of Cigarette screams at the top of their lungs

VAT of Broth is robbed

Deadbeat Is under a curse

World

Stores

Emerson's Cutting board Ventures

Wang's Fireplace Factory

George's Rug Solutions

Flynn's Watch Wardrobe

Traps

Scything Blade

Razor-Wire across Hallway of Sanitation

Objects

Cutting board with a False bottom

Rug children's replica

Secret Fireplace

Hidden Bottle

Boiled Leather of Sanitation

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s left arm doubles in length 1d4 times

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
King Wang "Bullet Falafels" Merchant Stickers Coffee
Noah George "The Matzo Balls" Mole Cooking Rock n' Roll
Isabella Watkins Veteran Rabbits Teeth
Emerson Santiago Statistician Doves Football
Anastasia Flynn Old Timer Trucks Sponges

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).