The Director Welcomes You

The Daughter Animosity Incident

#5d1e01

Location

Cool, Breezy Guinea-Bissau

Time of Day

22:41

Extraction Point

198 Miles NW

Time to Complete

18 Hours

Detectives,
I have sent you to the inside of a Deserted Maze to look for a suspect by the name "Silver all-seeing eye". This mission is counterintelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to rescue our field agent. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A traveling merchant appears at the graveyard".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Clandestine Sun Lotion in your kit to help.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Christopher Sims

Alias

"Silver all-seeing eye"

Features

6' 2"

Heterochromia eyes

Large deep scar / Left middle finger

Organization

The company of Curious Headquarters

Emotions

Brave

Personality

Owlishly Engorged

Motive

Make a lot of money to cause catastrophe

Bodyguard

Bobby the "Skinny Python"

Physical Size

Poor

Story

Additional Locations

The Hollow Forge

Desolate Isle

Prosperity Crypt

Random Events

Delivery Guy runs over an infant

Cookie Integrates silently into the group

Bag of Flour Finds gold in the water

Hoard Calls menacingly

World

Stores

Tucker's Wingback chair Logistics

Ferguson's Notebook Mall

Bowman's Toolset Cosmetics

Spencer's Goblet International

Traps

Extended Bane

Lightning Bolt of Animosity

Objects

Wingback chair children's replica

Toolset that has been hollowed out

Secret Notebook

Hidden Greaves

Medallion of Animosity

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s spellbook is sought by power-crazed conjurers

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Adaline Ferguson "Silver Dumplings" Merchant Cats Glass
Emery Bowman "Big Tongues" Mole Glass Stickers
Ryan Beck Graphic Designer Video Games Squirrels
Tucker Mack Physician Bears Chickens
Eric Spencer Zestful Octopus Rocks

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).