The Director Welcomes You

Outlet Royale

#697e9e

Location

Dull, Windless Denmark

Time of Day

4:48

Extraction Point

198 Miles NE

Time to Complete

13 Hours

Examiners,
I have sent you to within a Ancient Isle to look for a suspect by the name "Junior Spirit". This mission is black bag. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to slow them down. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A white horse dashes past at the Painted Sands".

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

β€” The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Emma Rogers

Alias

"Junior Spirit"

Features

4' 7"

Red eyes

A second belly button / Left hand

Organization

The Division of Swollen Curry

Emotions

Defeated

Personality

Unbearably Judicious

Motive

Disrupt the military in pursuit of knowledge

Bodyguard

Bobby the "Holy Bear"

Physical Size

Elder

Story

Additional Locations

The Stale Pond

Ancient Villa

Irritation Lake

Random Events

Bellhop Gets their hand chopped off

Chauvinist emerges

Drunk Evades the law

Bellhop arrives in the mail

World

Stores

Eloise's Bicycle Outlet

Russell's Telescope Cosmetics

Chan's Kitchen knife Atelier

Swanson's Letter Opener Logistics

Traps

Hail of Needles

Compacting Room of Sanitation

Objects

Bicycle that is glowing

Kitchen knife made of heavy metal

Secret Telescope

Hidden Chewing Gum

Club of Sanitation

Wand of Wonder

Caster suddenly realizes that he’s been naked for 2d8 days

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Connor Russell "Dull Bones" Merchant Football Video Games
Brandon Chan "Three Forearms" Mole Syrup Singing
Giovanni Wise Veterinarian Scarves Technology
Eloise Sparks Old Man Cookies Tigers
Camden Swanson Chief Executive Officer Clocks Death

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).