The Director Welcomes You

Discount Royale

#6ba3fb

Location

Foul, Arid Cyprus

Time of Day

14:7

Extraction Point

35 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

42 Hours

Investigators,
As you can see you are trapped inside be locked inside of a Compact Nuclear Power Plant . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Plump Platypuses" is responsible and they sent us this message - "Distant sounds of screaming at the Where grass will not grow". Your mission was anti-surveillance, achieve what you can.

Hopefully you still have that Dull Baking Tray hidden on you.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Calvin Smith

Alias

"Plump Platypuses"

Features

6' 7"

Gray eyes

Stretch Marks / Left thumb

Organization

The Association of Cocky Goat

Emotions

Isolated

Personality

Righteously Dead

Motive

Take over a country to better Humanity

Bodyguard

Simon the "Bankrupt Sprite"

Physical Size

Sizable

Story

Additional Locations

The Low Citadel

Rundown Circus

Redemption Lodge

Random Events

Potato Is hurled at the adventurers

Gypsy Protests

Crazy Man overflows

Cat drops from the sky

World

Stores

Michael's Telescope Discount

Webb's Medallion Du jour

Mullins's Telescope Cosmetics

Stanley's Flower in Vase Warehouse

Traps

Acid Arrow

Water-Filled Room of Weakness

Objects

Telescope with a False bottom

Telescope that has been hollowed out

Secret Medallion

Hidden Cat

Blowgun of Weakness

Wand of Wonder

When caster next draws blood, his weapon turns to steam

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Melanie Webb "Right Pretzels" Merchant Horses Bears
Kennedy Mullins "All Heels" Mole Hamsters Cats
Jaxon Gibbs Demon Chili Hamsters
Michael Vega Elevator Mechanic Glitter Cartography
Natalie Stanley Blacksmith Shirts Robots

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).