The Director Welcomes You

Who is Nancy Cocktail?

#350815

Location

Humid, Cloudy San Marino

Time of Day

4:23

Extraction Point

12 Miles SE

Time to Complete

41 Hours

Meddlers,
We need your help. Agent Kingston Christensen has gone missing and we believe "Mini Dwarf" is responsible. They were last seen in San Marino at 12:14. The agent sent one final message – "A pool of blood at the Old battlefield". Take this Delicate Toy - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jasper Kelly

Alias

"Mini Dwarf"

Features

6' 7"

Blue eyes

A second belly button / Left arm

Organization

The Committee of Bad Ashtray

Emotions

Humiliated

Personality

Coaxingly Victorious

Motive

Disrupt the military because of a betrayal

Bodyguard

Nancy the "Dangerous potato"

Physical Size

Narrow

Story

Additional Locations

The Young Villa

Archaic Chateau

Instability Arcade

Random Events

Cookie grabs a lady's purse

Soup chase a suspect

Hoard Is hurled at the adventurers

Chunk of Beef Strikes the church bell

World

Stores

Blake's Lamp Labs

Torres's Lounge Chair Solutions

Curtis's Cabinet Discount

Christensen's Lipstick Creative

Traps

Object Smeared with Poison

Chain Lightning of Fragility

Objects

Lamp made of heavy metal

Cabinet children's replica

Secret Lounge Chair

Hidden Arrows

Brass Knuckles of Fragility

Wand of Wonder

Caster finds 2d8 real-looking but useless spells in his spellbook

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Vincent Torres "Tough Spleens" Merchant Photography Hammers
Jose Curtis "Quiet Throats" Mole Football Cellphones
Faith Wise Exhausted Death Washing Machines
Blake Thomas Fortune Cookie Writer Syrup Whipped Cream
Kingston Christensen Soul Whipped Cream Football

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).