The Director Welcomes You

Who is Roberto Trousers?

#0a6352

Location

Cloudy, Dull Djibouti

Time of Day

11:29

Extraction Point

87 Miles E

Time to Complete

21 Hours

Informants,
It seems "Three Siren" has gone level 8. They have been broadcasting this message "An object nearby starts bleeding at the Boneyard". We need you to eliminate them, Doubtfully. Their last known location was recorded at 16:10. You have a Heavy Pencil as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Catherine Logan

Alias

"Three Siren"

Features

5' 10"

Red eyes

Large moles / Right eye

Organization

The Brotherhood of Bloody Jury

Emotions

Elated

Personality

Doubtfully Boiling

Motive

Take over a government to inspire a rebellion

Bodyguard

Roberto the "Smelly Yeti"

Physical Size

Cramped

Story

Additional Locations

The Millions Carnival

Archaic Port

Dark Festival

Random Events

Crying Child skins a cat with his teeth

Robber Spontaneously disintegrates

Pack of Wild Dogs catches on fire

Hoard is robbed

World

Stores

Kimberly's Staircase Industries

Deleon's Mirror Mall

Chavez's Kitchen knife Hole

Franklin's Fireplace Bureau

Traps

Earthquake

Beehive of Amnesia

Objects

Staircase made of heavy metal

Kitchen knife that is glowing

Secret Mirror

Hidden Stave

Lance of Amnesia

Wand of Wonder

Caster owes his life to someone who won’t be born for centuries

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Leo Deleon "Nice Forearms" Merchant Lipstick Tissues
Marcus Chavez "Short Eyes" Mole Sponges Squirrels
Messiah Mann Actor Mirrors Cooking
Kimberly Rose Cheerful Trucks Cousins
August Franklin Librarian Sharp Things Washing Machines

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).