The Director Welcomes You

Who is Philip Music?

#7b85f0

Location

Humid, Gloomy Sweden

Time of Day

5:28

Extraction Point

141 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

13 Hours

Undercover Emissaries,
It seems "Tough Manticore" has gone level 9. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a random cow at the Old battlefield". We need you to eliminate them, Unabashedly. Their last known location was recorded at 08:05. You have a Clandestine Bottle as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Reagan Robles

Alias

"Tough Manticore"

Features

4' 9"

Blue eyes

Small mole / Left arm

Organization

The Fraternity of Worried Patsy

Emotions

Uncertain

Personality

Unabashedly Broken

Motive

Take over a government out of desperation

Bodyguard

Philip the "Brave Seal"

Physical Size

Vast

Story

Additional Locations

The Vast Jungle

Abandoned Citadel

Ruin House

Random Events

Corncob emerges

Potato Glistens gently

Squirrel Is being kidnapped

Spectator Bounces oddly

World

Stores

Wyatt's Kitchen table Hole

Morrison's Bicycle Labs

Armstrong's Fruit Bowl Group

Morgan's Hose Cosmetics

Traps

Poisoned Arrow

Flooded Corridor of Joy

Objects

Kitchen table children's replica

Fruit Bowl with a False bottom

Secret Bicycle

Hidden Javelins

Diary of Joy

Wand of Wonder

If hit by a bludgeon on a natural 20, caster ages 1d100 years

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Callie Morrison "Italian Stomachs" Merchant Cartography Rubber Stamps
Jace Armstrong "Little Spleens" Mole Paper Fire
Eva Patterson Fortune Cookie Writer Cousins Physics
Wyatt Fuller Envious Slippers Houses
Presley Morgan Restless Sun Glasses Christmas

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).