The Director Welcomes You

The Sternly Arid Agent

#9e6cb4

Location

Calm, Dark Moldova

Time of Day

13:14

Extraction Point

164 Miles E

Time to Complete

45 Hours

Undercover Emissaries,
I have sent you to the bottom of a Expensive City to look for a suspect by the name "Orange Wendigo". This mission is clandestine. 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 – "A white horse dashes past at the Golden Fire".

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

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Max Owen

Alias

"Orange Wendigo"

Features

4' 5"

Red eyes

Large deep scar / Neck

Organization

The League of Grumpy Mask

Emotions

Love

Personality

Sternly Teeny

Motive

Take over a country out of desperation

Bodyguard

Philip the "Tragic Leech"

Physical Size

Immense

Story

Additional Locations

The Arid Forge

Rundown Manor

Prosperity Peninsula

Random Events

Rustler is being loudly arrested

Midwife scurries by

Spice Box Balances on a ledge

Vagrant Is being tortured

World

Stores

Alexis's Stamp Set Hole

Ward's Canopy Bed Group

Kelly's Candle Wardrobe

Alexander's Spice shelf Boutique

Traps

Fireball

Javelin of Extinction

Objects

Stamp Set that is glowing

Candle that has been hollowed out

Secret Canopy Bed

Hidden Mace

Notebook of Extinction

Wand of Wonder

Anyone nearby who’s carrying an artifact is possessed by it

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Rachel Ward "Big Livers" Merchant Doves Sponges
Jordan Kelly "Short Lungs" Mole Trees Fire
Lorenzo Herrera The Body Doors Sponges
Alexis Rodgers Stressed Chalk Eggs
Waylon Alexander Elevator Mechanic Fire Squirrels

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).