The Director Welcomes You

The Gifted Catamaran Case

#41200a

Location

Humid, Humid Mauritania

Time of Day

10:26

Extraction Point

10 Miles NWW

Time to Complete

5 Hours

Informants,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Statue that has been hollowed out. Get to Mauritania at 03:22

Good Luck.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Joseph Evans

Alias

"One Pegasus"

Features

4' 3"

Green eyes

A second belly button / Left foot

Organization

The Authority of Creamy Sasquatch

Emotions

Adoration

Personality

Upward Stocky

Motive

Take over a government out of jealousy

Bodyguard

Anthony the "Repulsive Drunken Irish Guy"

Physical Size

Petite

Story

Additional Locations

The Gifted Forest

Pitch Black Barn Dance

Purity Carousal

Random Events

Thief Skips merrily

Gypsy strikes the ground

Transport Integrates silently into the group

Jug of Peanut Butter meets disaster

World

Stores

Emery's Statue International

Ruiz's Musical instrument Creative

Mendez's Pedestal Du jour

Adkins's Metal chair Bazaar

Traps

Reverse Gravity

Collapsing Column of Redemption

Objects

Statue that has been hollowed out

Pedestal children's replica

Secret Musical instrument

Hidden Brass Knuckles

Falchion of Redemption

Wand of Wonder

Target vows to slay anyone who uses magic on him

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Jonathan Ruiz "Wild Lungs" Merchant Technology Washing Machines
John Mendez "Junior Elbows" Mole Money Soup
Matteo Phillips Physician Physics Sharks
Emery Collins Actor Boxes Sharp Things
Nolan Adkins Scientist Attention Lamps

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).