The Director Welcomes You

The Hallowed Whip Conundrum

#932b33

Location

Stormy, Foggy Russia

Time of Day

2:25

Extraction Point

119 Miles SE

Time to Complete

22 Hours

Spy Deputies,
We need your help. Agent Ezekiel Beck has gone missing and we believe "Gross Cyclops" is responsible. They were last seen in Russia at 04:22. The agent sent one final message – "A pool of blood at the Old battlefield". Take this Slippery Flute - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Rowan Marquez

Alias

"Gross Cyclops"

Features

4' 8"

Red eyes

Large moles / Left middle finger

Organization

The Fraternity of Dazzling Vessel

Emotions

Dismayed

Personality

Kissingly Sore

Motive

Disrupt the military to be left alone

Bodyguard

Charles the "Childish Wendigo"

Physical Size

Miniature

Story

Additional Locations

The Hallowed Reef

Touristy Grove

Skill Circus

Random Events

Meteor Spontaneously disintegrates

Cat Is being kidnapped

Box of Mice stop the party and asks questions

Robber Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

World

Stores

Amy's Butter Churner Bureau

Jackson's Spice shelf Emporium

Gomez's Bible Collective

Beck's Vase Couture

Traps

Flame Strike

Rune of Paralyzation of Silence

Objects

Butter Churner children's replica

Bible children's replica

Secret Spice shelf

Hidden Bracelet

Guthook of Silence

Wand of Wonder

All within 50 yards are immune to all magic for 1d6 rounds

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Kai Jackson "No Lox" Merchant Flowers Tea
Sherri Gomez "Drowsy Muscles" Mole Soup Drinking
Sarah Juarez Operator Video Games Physics
Amy Garrett Counselor Writers Soup
Ezekiel Beck Sad Video Games Deodorant

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).