The Director Welcomes You

The Piercing The Blackest Black Protocol

#0df6c4

Location

Dull, Hot Palau

Time of Day

10:42

Extraction Point

173 Miles N

Time to Complete

1 Hours

Examiners,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Brass Replica that has been hollowed out. Get to Palau at 02:15

Good Luck.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Emma Hunter

Alias

"Stiff Dwarf"

Features

7' 10"

Red eyes

Stretch Marks / Left foot

Organization

The company of Teeny The Pope

Emotions

Infatuated

Personality

Weakly Little

Motive

Take over a country to control the Children

Bodyguard

Tim the "Fast child"

Physical Size

Small-scale

Story

Additional Locations

The Gigantic Forest

Bustling Circus

Euphoria Crypt

Random Events

Skeleton Ignites violently

Reindeer runs over an infant

Transport Balances on a ledge

Store Is throwing a protest

World

Stores

Wyatt's Brass Replica Boutique

Williamson's crutch Bazaar

McDonald's Sconce Labs

Evans's Urn Atelier

Traps

Dropping Ceiling

Moving Executioner Statue of The Blackest Black

Objects

Brass Replica that has been hollowed out

Sconce children's replica

Secret crutch

Hidden Helmet

Spikes of The Blackest Black

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s back is scarred in a checkerboard pattern of burns

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Brianna Williamson "Chunky Bagels" Merchant Television Butterflies
Gavin McDonald "Cramped Knuckles" Mole Water Bracelets
Elijah Dennis Optimistic Potatoes Tissues
Wyatt Craig Actor Gym Memberships Baseball
Ashley Evans Librarian Candy Socks

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).