The Director Welcomes You

The Hand Delirium Incident

#b69ce4

Location

Frigid, Frigid Russia

Time of Day

2:22

Extraction Point

165 Miles NEE

Time to Complete

26 Hours

Shadows,
I have sent you to be locked inside of a Compact Acropolis to look for a suspect by the name "Right Dragon". This mission is black ops. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to slow them down. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A shrine is nearby at the Ivory Gate".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Polished Tape Measure in your kit to help.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

John Waters

Alias

"Right Dragon"

Features

5' 3"

Amber eyes

Large deep scar / Crotch

Organization

The Clique of Swift People

Emotions

Hesitant

Personality

Beautifully Damp

Motive

Disrupt the military to better Humanity

Bodyguard

Mitch the "Damaged giant"

Physical Size

Slight

Story

Additional Locations

The Curved Palace

Compact Crypt

Downfall Arcade

Random Events

Renaissance Faire Is throwing a BBQ

Crazy Man is loose

Water Vessel Is under a curse

Baker Is being kidnapped

World

Stores

Morgan's Candlesticks International

Hines's Hose Convenience store

Fernandez's Painting Supermarket

Carroll's Platter Du jour

Traps

Bricks from Ceiling

Flooding Room of Delirium

Objects

Candlesticks children's replica

Painting that is glowing

Secret Hose

Hidden Boiled Leather

Ring of Delirium

Wand of Wonder

Next spell caster casts on himself flares out of control

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Carter Hines "Golden Parmigianas" Merchant Children's Stories Paperclips
Ella Fernandez "Green Spleens" Mole Doors Dinosaurs
Lillian Adkins Farmer Paperclips Sharks
Morgan Russell Physician Chickens Football
Asher Carroll Master Distiller Socks Contracts

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).