The Director Welcomes You

The Dirigible Destiny Incident

#6545b0

Location

Humid, Chilly Palau

Time of Day

17:32

Extraction Point

91 Miles S

Time to Complete

46 Hours

Agents,
We need your help. Agent Athena Nunez has gone missing and we believe "Big Pheonix" is responsible. They were last seen in Palau at 08:16. The agent sent one final message – "A lone flower growing at the Ghost Town". Take this Explosive Vise - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Victoria Ramos

Alias

"Big Pheonix"

Features

7' 1"

Blue eyes

A second belly button / Crotch

Organization

The Society of Childish Kitten

Emotions

Inferior

Personality

Kiddingly Loose

Motive

Take over a country because of a betrayal

Bodyguard

Peter the "Adorable Yeti"

Physical Size

Meager

Story

Additional Locations

The Puny Forge

Bustling Manor

Fatality Grove

Random Events

Gallon of Trash Finds gold in the water

Softball arrives in the mail

Gallon of Trash Lunges at the group

Hoard Is under a curse

World

Stores

Amelia's Bed Market

Figueroa's Barrel International

Ford's Canopy Bed Collective

Nunez's Taxidermy animal Boutique

Traps

Javelin

Suspicious door with lock of Destiny

Objects

Bed with a False bottom

Canopy Bed made of heavy metal

Secret Barrel

Hidden Throwing Dart

Notebook of Destiny

Wand of Wonder

Target is widely recognized as a traitor to his race and species

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Dean Figueroa "Big Kidneys" Merchant Tigers Squirrels
Jonah Ford "Little Bagels" Mole Shirts Paperclips
Trinity Hubbard Tailor Washing Machines Drinking
Amelia Long Pharmacist Sharks Lions
Athena Nunez Surgeon Candles Paperclips

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).