The Director Welcomes You

The Synagogue Irritation Incident

#bdcd71

Location

Breezy, Calm Montenegro

Time of Day

9:2

Extraction Point

107 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

9 Hours

Detectives,
It seems "King Lion" has gone level 3. They have been broadcasting this message "Tracks of wolves can be seen at the Hollow oak tree". We need you to eliminate them, Upliftingly. Their last known location was recorded at 13:10. You have a Polished Pencil as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Eli Gross

Alias

"King Lion"

Features

7' 11"

Green eyes

Faint curved scar / Right thumb

Organization

The Agency of Mango Judge

Emotions

Calm

Personality

Upliftingly Quick

Motive

Take over a country to become the best

Bodyguard

Billy the "Itchy Cat"

Physical Size

Miniature

Story

Additional Locations

The Chuffed Business

Hidden Fortress

Extermination Forge

Random Events

Crow scurries by

Gallon of Trash Glistens gently

Hoard meets disaster

Donkey emerges

World

Stores

Adam's Counter Market

Sandoval's Mirror Industries

Hamilton's Brass Replica Factory

Sparks's Lipstick Du jour

Traps

Crushing Room

Fireball of Irritation

Objects

Counter that is glowing

Brass Replica children's replica

Secret Mirror

Hidden Coin

Boiled Leather of Irritation

Wand of Wonder

Target’s voice sounds oddly artificial and disturbing

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Isabelle Sandoval "Fast Eyes" Merchant Robots Paperclips
Richard Hamilton "All Ankles" Mole Clocks Horses
Mateo Todd Sad Sun Glasses Batteries
Adam Cobb Tailor Mirrors Rubber Stamps
Alexander Sparks Engineer Quartz Crystals Glass

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).