The Director Welcomes You

Lace, Corn, Paper Bag, Spy.

#28ea07

Location

Overcast, Chilly Latvia

Time of Day

7:7

Extraction Point

129 Miles S

Time to Complete

25 Hours

Shadows,
We need your help. Agent Avery Miller has gone missing and we believe "Plump Normal Guy" is responsible. They were last seen in Latvia at 07:05. The agent sent one final message – "A stranger can be seen in the shadows at the Dragon's Sea". Take this Colorful Lighter - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Alan Marquez

Alias

"Plump Normal Guy"

Features

6' 6"

Brown eyes

Large deep scar / Neck

Organization

The League of Mealy Paper Bag

Emotions

Love

Personality

Unnaturally Thankful

Motive

Take over a country to be left alone

Bodyguard

Terry the "Gigantic Lion"

Physical Size

Great

Story

Additional Locations

The Polite Island

Hidden Arcade

Excitement Mansion

Random Events

Delivery Guy scurries by

Toilet Is frozen into a block of ice

Bottle of Soy Sauce Calls menacingly

Bag of Flour gathers near a point of interest

World

Stores

Valeria's Skeletal Animal International

Hart's Glass Jars Little shop

Thornton's Pipe Industries

Miller's Iron stove Technologies

Traps

Bear Trap

Water-Filled Room of Reservation

Objects

Skeletal Animal children's replica

Pipe that has been hollowed out

Secret Glass Jars

Hidden Chewing Gum

Diary of Reservation

Wand of Wonder

Someone nearby must Save vs Death or his skin burns from his body

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Claire Hart "White Kidneys" Merchant Plushies Attention
Valerie Thornton "Indigo Cheesecakes" Mole Coffee Houses
Sophia Murphy Graphic Designer Television Jigsaw Puzzles
Valeria Gordon Statistician Paper Jazz
Avery Miller Art Therapist Paperclips Attention

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).