The Director Welcomes You

Who is Alex Country?

#f8ae68

Location

Sunny, Sunny Canada

Time of Day

23:38

Extraction Point

199 Miles E

Time to Complete

25 Hours

Ambassadors,
I have sent you to descend into Archaic Masquerade to look for a suspect by the name "Golden Cockatrice". This mission is counterintelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to rescue our field agent. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "Distant sounds of screaming at the Seven Dead".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Colorful Stapler in your kit to help.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Thomas Davidson

Alias

"Golden Cockatrice"

Features

7' 8"

Amber eyes

Large deep scar / Left hand

Organization

The League of Fat Mask

Emotions

Nervous

Personality

Softly Jolly

Motive

Disrupt the military to lead a mutiny

Bodyguard

Alex the "Shitty Hedgehogs"

Physical Size

Shrimpy

Story

Additional Locations

The Victorian Acropolis

Underground Palace

Enjoyment Lake

Random Events

Bag of Flour approaches

Dracula Balances on a ledge

Bunny Becomes wounded

Midwife Becomes wounded

World

Stores

Eden's Picture Frame Ventures

Greene's Figurine Mall

Barker's Globe Hole

Garza's Globe Boutique

Traps

Bricks from Ceiling

Poison Dart of Laughter

Objects

Picture Frame children's replica

Globe with a False bottom

Secret Figurine

Hidden Blowgun

Longsword of Laughter

Wand of Wonder

Target gains a title based on his actions in the next 1d6 rounds

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Graham Greene "Short Hands" Merchant Doves Jigsaw Puzzles
Arianna Barker "Five Tongues" Mole Eggs Teeth
Adrian Evans Cranky Quartz Crystals Slippers
Eden Nunez Waiter Soup Pillows
Amelia Garza Intoxicated Butterflies Plushies

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).