The Director Welcomes You

The Invisible Hate Research

#8f2596

Location

Calm, Chilly Belize

Time of Day

9:52

Extraction Point

36 Miles SWW

Time to Complete

25 Hours

Silent Negotiators,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Lipstick children's replica. Get to Belize at 10:05

Good Luck.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Silas Hill

Alias

"Five Wendigo"

Features

6' 5"

Green eyes

A second belly button / Left leg

Organization

The Task Force of Sadistic Zephyr

Emotions

Interested

Personality

Almost Brutish

Motive

Take over a government fueled by conspiracy

Bodyguard

David the "Strung Out Cyclops"

Physical Size

Baby

Story

Additional Locations

The Invisible Fortress

Abandoned Tower

Happiness Acropolis

Random Events

Dozen Eggs Is under a curse

Spice Box Is getting confiscated

Bottle of Soy Sauce Ignites violently

Carcass gathers near a point of interest

World

Stores

Elliot's Lipstick Industries

Moreno's Cabinet Department store

Bates's Loveseat Specialities

McCoy's Flower in Vase Convenience store

Traps

Wall Blade

Collapsing Column of Silence

Objects

Lipstick children's replica

Loveseat children's replica

Secret Cabinet

Hidden Rock

Bangle of Silence

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s clothes radiate intense magic

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Trinity Moreno "Silver Cappuccinos" Merchant Bracelets Hamsters
Lincoln Bates "Slow Churros" Mole Robots Syrup
Joel Webb Musician Sponges Rabbits
Elliot Chan Surgeon Clocks Bread
Bryson McCoy Envious Chickens Rubber Stamps

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).