The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Square Cast Iron Pan

#736eab

Location

Gorgeous, Bright Slovenia

Time of Day

14:8

Extraction Point

81 Miles SWW

Time to Complete

39 Hours

Eyeballs,
As you can see you are trapped inside descend into Archaic Forest . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Indigo Nymph" is responsible and they sent us this message - "A shadow passes at the Ancient Fountain". Your mission was clandestine, achieve what you can.

Hopefully you still have that Light Barstool hidden on you.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Silas Hunter

Alias

"Indigo Nymph"

Features

5' 2"

Gray eyes

Large deep scar / Left hand

Organization

The Society of Turbulent Rocket

Emotions

Delighted

Personality

Shakily Arid

Motive

Take over a government fueled by conspiracy

Bodyguard

Emily the "Girthy Hedgehogs"

Physical Size

Towering

Story

Additional Locations

The Square Lodge

Crowded Citadel

Indecision Fortress

Random Events

Turtle stop the party and asks questions

Druid Evades the law

Reindeer Bounces oddly

Meteor Bounces oddly

World

Stores

Arabella's Grandfather Clock Outlet

Chandler's Easel Unlimited

Carrillo's Trophy Properties

Joseph's Shoe Horn Arcade

Traps

Chain Lightning

Bestow Curse of Purity

Objects

Grandfather Clock made of heavy metal

Trophy with a False bottom

Secret Easel

Hidden Sling

Hatchet of Purity

Wand of Wonder

A swirl of rainbows accompanies any spell cast by caster

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Adaline Chandler "Silver Stomachs" Merchant Teeth Bells
Hudson Carrillo "King Parmigianas" Mole Toilets Toilets
Samantha Carpenter Journalist Squirrels Sponges
Arabella Coleman Zestful Bells Batteries
Harper Joseph Old Timer Cooking Doors

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).