The Director Welcomes You

Who is David Thanks?

#9dc9ea

Location

Wet, Dull Botswana

Time of Day

6:2

Extraction Point

132 Miles W

Time to Complete

24 Hours

Agents,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Figurine that has been hollowed out. Get to Botswana at 05:12

Good Luck.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Rhett Lawson

Alias

"Violet Sprite"

Features

4' 10"

Hazel eyes

Faint curved scar / Left middle finger

Organization

The Bunch of Wrong Children

Emotions

Fearful

Personality

Fatally Lazy

Motive

Take over a government for fear of the heroes

Bodyguard

David the "Bruised Manticore"

Physical Size

Petty

Story

Additional Locations

The Mammoth Carousal

Underwater Citadel

Obsession Circus

Random Events

Buccaneer Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

Wanderer catches on fire

Crying Child Protests

Chicken chase a suspect

World

Stores

Vincent's Figurine Hole

Harris's Kitchen table Properties

Carroll's Oil Lamp Logistics

Sullivan's Iron stove Market

Traps

Extended Bane

Lightning Bolt of Purity

Objects

Figurine that has been hollowed out

Oil Lamp children's replica

Secret Kitchen table

Hidden Camera

Rock of Purity

Wand of Wonder

Caster dies painfully but arises at dawn having gained one level

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Caroline Harris "Mini Eyes" Merchant Soap Photography
Guy Carroll "Two Thumbs" Mole Mirrors Houses
Avery May Fortune Cookie Writer Sticks Sponges
Vincent Beck Acupuncturist Octopus Soda
Claire Sullivan Athlete Rocks Essential Oils

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).