The Director Welcomes You

The Freezing Crime Problem

#bde04e

Location

Frigid, Gorgeous Australia

Time of Day

10:35

Extraction Point

102 Miles SSE

Time to Complete

37 Hours

Snoopers,
We need your help. Agent Braxton Rowe has gone missing and we believe "Violet Demon" is responsible. They were last seen in Australia at 15:05. The agent sent one final message – "An out of place door appears at the Garden of Bears". Take this Clandestine Pencil - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Zoe McCoy

Alias

"Violet Demon"

Features

4' 5"

Brown eyes

Large deep scar / Left eye

Organization

The Company of Scrawny Rings

Emotions

Suspicious

Personality

Joyously Immense

Motive

Make a lot of money because of a betrayal

Bodyguard

Roberto the "Strung Out Wraith"

Physical Size

Minuscule

Story

Additional Locations

The Freezing Fortress

Underground Manor

Good Spirits Forest

Random Events

Nearby Gas Tank Integrates silently into the group

Hound grabs a lady's purse

Leopard gathers near a point of interest

Rustler Is throwing a protest

World

Stores

Mateo's Ring Convenience store

Gutierrez's Footlocker Industries

Barnes's Bookcase Couture

Rowe's Toolset Properties

Traps

Ceiling Pendulum

Compacting Room of Demise

Objects

Ring children's replica

Bookcase made of heavy metal

Secret Footlocker

Hidden Whip

Notebook of Demise

Wand of Wonder

Caster thinks that his spellbook is a living entity

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Braxton Gutierrez "Chunky Falafels" Merchant Music Stickers
Gianna Barnes "Golden Brains" Mole Easter Lipstick
Parker Hampton Athlete Essential Oils Peanut Butter
Mateo Sims Dentist Music Broccoli
Braxton Rowe Indifferent Christmas Water

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).