The Director Welcomes You

Collective Royale

#cf8ff1

Location

Overcast, Cloudy Uzbekistan

Time of Day

20:44

Extraction Point

173 Miles N

Time to Complete

6 Hours

Operatives,
It seems "No Gremlin" has gone level 10. They have been broadcasting this message "A traveling merchant appears at the Devil's barrow". We need you to eliminate them, Patiently. Their last known location was recorded at 07:19. You have a Soft Sun Lotion as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Mckenzie Oliver

Alias

"No Gremlin"

Features

7' 5"

Red eyes

Small mole / Right foot

Organization

The Council of Young Cheese

Emotions

Sorrow

Personality

Patiently Cold

Motive

Take over a country to cause catastrophe

Bodyguard

Bobby the "Swift Bear"

Physical Size

Enormous

Story

Additional Locations

The Breezy Park

Rundown Grove

Animosity Lodge

Random Events

Baker Attempts to rob a bank

Majestic Painting Strikes the church bell

Dracula Glistens gently

Procession Gets their hand chopped off

World

Stores

Robert's Basket Collective

Hill's Ceramic Crock Productions

Coleman's Mounted Animal Couture

Fleming's Tapestry Technologies

Traps

Flooded Corridor

Ice lock of Expiration

Objects

Basket that has been hollowed out

Mounted Animal children's replica

Secret Ceramic Crock

Hidden Knife

Bow of Expiration

Wand of Wonder

Target is shunned by anyone carrying a magic item

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Miguel Hill "Meaty Spleens" Merchant Bread Syrup
Rylee Coleman "King Boy" Mole Drinking Bears
Peyton Luna Envious Writers Flowers
Robert Farmer Police Officer Sun Glasses Hamsters
Reagan Fleming Scientist Easter Sticks

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).