The Director Welcomes You

International Royale

#194cf2

Location

Sunny, Balmy Iraq

Time of Day

24:32

Extraction Point

170 Miles S

Time to Complete

43 Hours

Agents,
It seems "Short Kaiju" has gone level 1. They have been broadcasting this message "A stranger can be seen in the shadows at the Snowy garrison". We need you to eliminate them, Bleakly. Their last known location was recorded at 01:17. You have a Beautiful Flute as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

George Rios

Alias

"Short Kaiju"

Features

5' 2"

Brown eyes

Large deep scar / Right eye

Organization

The Commission of Wailing Advice

Emotions

Attraction

Personality

Bleakly Tenacious

Motive

Take over a government out of greed

Bodyguard

Johnny the "Fried Hedgehogs"

Physical Size

Poor

Story

Additional Locations

The Gigantic Reef

Expensive Park

Pleasure Business

Random Events

Demon emerges

Nomad Bounces oddly

Transport Gets their hand chopped off

Ninja runs over an infant

World

Stores

Bryson's Bible International

McBride's Watch Emporium

Erickson's Music Box Convenience store

Simon's Coat Threads

Traps

Ice lock

Acid Fog of Grave Consequences

Objects

Bible made of heavy metal

Music Box made of heavy metal

Secret Watch

Hidden Chastity Belt

Sickle of Grave Consequences

Wand of Wonder

1d6 people nearby will become zombies in 3d6 days

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Cameron McBride "White Waffles" Merchant Candles Paper
Autumn Erickson "Blue Muscles" Mole Doves Soccer
Valerie Bradley Cosmetologist Bells Music
Bryson Gallagher Banker Scarves Rubber Stamps
Claire Simon Master Distiller Tigers Acorns

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).