The Director Welcomes You

Bazaar Royale

#d85b26

Location

Wet, Overcast United States

Time of Day

21:24

Extraction Point

88 Miles E

Time to Complete

37 Hours

Scrutinizers,
We need your help. Agent Sara Harrison has gone missing and we believe "Bullet mammoth" is responsible. They were last seen in United States at 11:13. The agent sent one final message – "A mysterious key is found on the ground at the Apple Orchard". Take this Mechanical Blouse - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Kaylee Patterson

Alias

"Bullet mammoth"

Features

6' 3"

Hazel eyes

Large moles / Left eye

Organization

The Brotherhood of Clacking Machine

Emotions

Pity

Personality

Jovially Avian

Motive

Take over a country for scientific discovery

Bodyguard

Alex the "Brave Horse"

Physical Size

Enormous

Story

Additional Locations

The Fit Business

Underground Castle

Well-being Fortress

Random Events

Dracula is heard screaming

Midwife Is being kidnapped

Rustler is being loudly arrested

Chunk of Beef Bounces oddly

World

Stores

Lilly's Bicycle Bazaar

Ayala's Platter Du jour

Lang's Butter Churner Consulting

Harrison's Bible Labs

Traps

Large Net

Flooding Room of Vulnerability

Objects

Bicycle with a False bottom

Butter Churner with a False bottom

Secret Platter

Hidden Collar

Chastity Belt of Vulnerability

Wand of Wonder

The target point is the center of a zone of anti-magic

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Valentina Ayala "Meaty Hands" Merchant Sticky Notes Coffee
Alice Lang "Nice Matzo Balls" Mole Singing Chili
Lyla Stephens Soul Cookies Soap
Lilly Le Athlete Chili Photography
Sara Harrison Cleaner Baseball Coffee

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).