The Director Welcomes You

Glove, Gladiator, Pie, Spy.

#50f206

Location

Cloudy, Foggy Portugal

Time of Day

18:41

Extraction Point

199 Miles S

Time to Complete

8 Hours

Snoopers,
We need your help. Agent Kylie Payne has gone missing and we believe "Junior Griffin" is responsible. They were last seen in Portugal at 11:00. The agent sent one final message – "Tracks of wolves can be seen at the dry riverbed". Take this Heavy Bible - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Andrew Nichols

Alias

"Junior Griffin"

Features

5' 4"

Green eyes

A second belly button / Left hand

Organization

The Commission of Egregious Pie

Emotions

Regretful

Personality

Stealthily Icy

Motive

Disrupt the military to lust for power

Bodyguard

James the "Evasive Leech"

Physical Size

Young

Story

Additional Locations

The Robust Park

Abandoned Jungle

Weakness Castle

Random Events

Horse Carriage Skips merrily

Dancer stop the party and asks questions

Alligator explodes

Squirrel Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

World

Stores

Julia's Pocket watch Worldwide

Burke's Bench Threads

Hammond's Sink Supermarket

Payne's Certificate Du jour

Traps

Floor Net

Wall Blade of Amnesia

Objects

Pocket watch that has been hollowed out

Sink with a False bottom

Secret Bench

Hidden Shield

Watch of Amnesia

Wand of Wonder

When caster next draws blood, he’s restored to full hit points

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Brooklyn Burke "Nice Noses" Merchant Deodorant Hamsters
Angelina Hammond "Right Pinky's" Mole Sponges Death
Roman Gordon Stressed Writers Chocolate
Julia Arnold Angry Sticky Notes Cats
Kylie Payne Headhunter Paper Hammers

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).