The Director Welcomes You

Du jour Royale

#300f79

Location

Balmy, Cloudless Sri Lanka

Time of Day

0:42

Extraction Point

169 Miles SE

Time to Complete

44 Hours

Meddlers,
It seems "Dull Chimera" has gone level 10. They have been broadcasting this message "Tracks of wolves can be seen at the Three Fingers". We need you to eliminate them, Frankly. Their last known location was recorded at 05:03. You have a Heavy File as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Joel Payne

Alias

"Dull Chimera"

Features

7' 4"

Gray eyes

Large moles / Right hand

Organization

The Alliance of Meaty Hunter

Emotions

Worried

Personality

Frankly Edgy

Motive

Make a lot of money to corrupt everyone

Bodyguard

Darnell the "Faithful Wendigo"

Physical Size

Limited

Story

Additional Locations

The Weak Manor

Archaic Pond

Fragility Creek

Random Events

VAT of Broth Bursts loudly

Druid Is throwing a BBQ

Prostitute stop the party and asks questions

Rhapsody Protests

World

Stores

Elijah's Toolset Du jour

Cooper's Quill and Ink Creative

Vasquez's Shelf of alcohol Mall

Bush's Easel Ventures

Traps

Portcullis

Arrow of Catastrophe

Objects

Toolset children's replica

Shelf of alcohol that has been hollowed out

Secret Quill and Ink

Hidden Lighter

Brass Knuckles of Catastrophe

Wand of Wonder

All within 50 yards are draped with pungent floral garlands

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Tricia Cooper "Small Lemons" Merchant Sun Glasses Cooking
Blake Vasquez "All Forearms" Mole Comic Books Washing Machines
Brianna Gordon Surveyor Rubber Stamps Robots
Elijah Jackson Depressed Bracelets Television
Brantley Bush The Body Children's Stories Rabbits

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).