The Director Welcomes You

Who is Larry Insignia?

#169a83

Location

Bright, Bright Sierra Leone

Time of Day

2:52

Extraction Point

138 Miles E

Time to Complete

30 Hours

Sleuths,
It seems "White Cat" has gone level 4. They have been broadcasting this message "A traveling merchant appears at the Field of Wildflowers". We need you to eliminate them, Politely. Their last known location was recorded at 02:20. You have a Colorful Ashtray as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Valentina Sims

Alias

"White Cat"

Features

6' 5"

Blue eyes

Large deep scar / Left thumb

Organization

The Council of Moldy Daytime Tv

Emotions

Relaxed

Personality

Politely Intransigent

Motive

Make a lot of money because of a betrayal

Bodyguard

Larry the "Heavy Cat"

Physical Size

Mini

Story

Additional Locations

The Luminous Jungle

Rundown Lodge

Obsession Palace

Random Events

Demon runs over an infant

Druid is loose

Water Vessel grabs a lady's purse

Chunk of Beef Gets their hand chopped off

World

Stores

Piper's Mantle Industries

Harper's Rug Bazaar

Yates's Fire poker set Atelier

Gutierrez's Barrel Bazaar

Traps

Scything Blade

Ray of Sickness of Cheer

Objects

Mantle made of heavy metal

Fire poker set with a False bottom

Secret Rug

Hidden Bracer

Lance of Cheer

Wand of Wonder

When caster next enters his home, he ages 1d10 years

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Maxwell Harper "One Hands" Merchant Essential Oils Robots
Maddox Yates "Golden Hearts" Mole Lipstick Money
Esther Casey Mechanic Soup Rock n' Roll
Piper Oconnor Elevator Mechanic Sharks Boxes
Ayden Gutierrez Art Therapist Flowers Broccoli

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).