The Director Welcomes You

Boots, Erection, Chinese Finger Trap, Spy.

#2bc41c

Location

Foul, Warm Bangladesh

Time of Day

16:10

Extraction Point

165 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

31 Hours

Ambassadors,
As you can see you are trapped inside climb a Underground Isle . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Two Mongoose" is responsible and they sent us this message - "Clouds develop quickly at the ruined castle". Your mission was intelligence, achieve what you can.

Hopefully you still have that Robotic Barstool hidden on you.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Camden Barnett

Alias

"Two Mongoose"

Features

4' 10"

Red eyes

A second belly button / Left thumb

Organization

The Bureau of Quick Chinese Finger Trap

Emotions

Pleased

Personality

Majestically Substantial

Motive

Take over a government to be left alone

Bodyguard

Penelope the "Thoughtless Rhinoceroses"

Physical Size

Diminutive

Story

Additional Locations

The Blue Acropolis

Touristy Park

Darkness Carousal

Random Events

Goblet Lunges at the group

Corncob explodes

Dancer Finds gold in the water

Hoard is robbed

World

Stores

Mckenzie's Bureau Labs

Cohen's Toolset Wardrobe

Robertson's Candlesticks Bureau

Nichols's Pan Market

Traps

Beehive

Hail of Needles of Fire

Objects

Bureau that has been hollowed out

Candlesticks children's replica

Secret Toolset

Hidden Bracer

Button of Fire

Wand of Wonder

Target is suddenly standing upon what appears to be his own grave

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Lillian Cohen "Gross Elbows" Merchant Sailboats Snowglobes
Ellie Robertson "Slow Hearts" Mole Soap Sticks
Elizabeth Delgado Cranky Trucks Balloons
Mckenzie Lawson Cheerful Attention Flashlights
Aaliyah Nichols Teacher Potatoes Glitter

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).