The Director Welcomes You

The Mannered Friction Cryptogram

#a112f8

Location

Hot, Hot Zimbabwe

Time of Day

8:48

Extraction Point

94 Miles NW

Time to Complete

26 Hours

Detectives,
It seems "Plump Sphinx" has gone level 10. They have been broadcasting this message "A white horse dashes past at the Stone Circle". We need you to eliminate them, Coaxingly. Their last known location was recorded at 17:23. You have a Colorful Guitar as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Rose Holmes

Alias

"Plump Sphinx"

Features

5' 11"

Brown eyes

Faint curved scar / Left leg

Organization

The Bunch of Damaged Wren

Emotions

Interested

Personality

Coaxingly Gregorian

Motive

Take over a country for honor

Bodyguard

Jerry the "Depressed Bear"

Physical Size

Huge

Story

Additional Locations

The Mannered Suburbs

Deserted Mansion

Freshness Shelter

Random Events

Potato approaches

Dead Animal gathers near a point of interest

Skeleton Is throwing a protest

Alligator Bounces oddly

World

Stores

Joseph's Kitchen knife Unlimited

Flynn's Rubber Plant Bazaar

Craig's Barrel Department store

Ramirez's Pan Ventures

Traps

Poison Needle

Bear Trap of Delirium

Objects

Kitchen knife that is glowing

Barrel with a False bottom

Secret Rubber Plant

Hidden Longsword

Javelins of Delirium

Wand of Wonder

Next weapon nearby to draw blood is thereafter stolen by goblins

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Catherine Flynn "One Hot Dogs" Merchant Trucks Bread
Alexandra Craig "The Eyes" Mole Candy Potatoes
Dominic Payne Technician Limes Dice
Joseph Bush Police Officer Peanut Butter Bracelets
Eva Ramirez Zestful Quartz Crystals Soccer

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).