The Director Welcomes You

The Cool Tennisracket Voyage

#e50f56

Location

Breezy, Frigid San Marino

Time of Day

18:7

Extraction Point

87 Miles SWW

Time to Complete

46 Hours

Scrutinizers,
I have sent you to circle a Abandoned Volcano to look for a suspect by the name "White Griffin". This mission is clandestine. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to deactivate their resources. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A lone flower growing at the Broken Face".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Light Nuts and Bolts in your kit to help.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Dean Floyd

Alias

"White Griffin"

Features

7' 1"

Amber eyes

Small mole / Right middle finger

Organization

The Council of Orange Shunt

Emotions

Fondness

Personality

Miserably Flaky

Motive

Make a lot of money to become rich

Bodyguard

Sam the "Hungry Owl"

Physical Size

Minute

Story

Additional Locations

The Cool Creek

Touristy Circus

Sanitation Maze

Random Events

Princess overflows

Bag of Flour grabs a lady's purse

Odor Is being detained

Softball Is throwing a BBQ

World

Stores

Morris's Butter Churner Chic Chåteau

Richards's Wingback chair Discount

Guzman's Trinket Outlet

Santiago's Watch Arcade

Traps

Symbol of Hypnosis

Arrow of Violence

Objects

Butter Churner that has been hollowed out

Trinket made of heavy metal

Secret Wingback chair

Hidden Dagger

Arrows of Violence

Wand of Wonder

All chain mail within 50 yards is highly attractive to lightning

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Liam Richards "Bullet Stomachs" Merchant Coffee Christmas
Callie Guzman "Right Stomachs" Mole Octopus Quartz Crystals
Alex Barrett Psychiatrist Plushies Ice Cubes
Morris Schultz Master Distiller Lamps Money
Teagan Santiago Elevator Mechanic Chili Trees

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).