The Director Welcomes You

Technologies Royale

#25f0d4

Location

Foul, Miserable Cyprus

Time of Day

24:41

Extraction Point

108 Miles NE

Time to Complete

32 Hours

Meddlers,
We need your help. Agent Charles Hines has gone missing and we believe "Sharp child" is responsible. They were last seen in Cyprus at 21:13. The agent sent one final message – "A pool of blood at the dry riverbed". Take this Mechanical Vise - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jackson Hogan

Alias

"Sharp child"

Features

6' 1"

Green eyes

Stretch Marks / Left hand

Organization

The Order of Witty Thunder

Emotions

Disillusioned

Personality

Cautiously Sensual

Motive

Take over a country for revenge

Bodyguard

Jose the "Broken Werewolf"

Physical Size

Miniature

Story

Additional Locations

The Billions Forest

Deserted Masquerade

Laughter Sanctuary

Random Events

Whore screams at the top of their lungs

Bag of Flour scurries by

Soup strikes the ground

Pine Branch Balances on a ledge

World

Stores

Blake's Hat Technologies

Bates's Shelf of alcohol Arcade

Barnett's Wingback chair Du jour

Hines's Mantle Unlimited

Traps

Falling Block

Box of Brown Mold of Bitterness

Objects

Hat children's replica

Wingback chair children's replica

Secret Shelf of alcohol

Hidden Blowgun

Wrench of Bitterness

Wand of Wonder

Next weapon to wound target leaps 1d100 rounds into the future

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Angelina Bates "Heavy Brains" Merchant Doors Peanut Butter
Madeline Barnett "Fat Arms" Mole Writers Honey
Ariana Maldonado Meteorologist Coffee Water
Blake Gardner Elder Sharp Things Scarves
Charles Hines Tailor Dolphins Lipstick

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).