The Director Welcomes You

Splint, Lunch, Development, Spy.

#733120

Location

Icy, Cool Morocco

Time of Day

5:22

Extraction Point

109 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

17 Hours

Examiners,
It seems "White mammoth" has gone level 2. They have been broadcasting this message "A roll of thunder at the Golden Fire". We need you to eliminate them, Properly. Their last known location was recorded at 04:24. You have a Vicious Newspaper as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Max Chandler

Alias

"White mammoth"

Features

7' 9"

Hazel eyes

Large deep scar / Left leg

Organization

The Division of Intelligent Development

Emotions

Dismayed

Personality

Properly Embarrassed

Motive

Make a lot of money to lust for power

Bodyguard

Bobby the "Stoned Rabbit"

Physical Size

Enormous

Story

Additional Locations

The Inexpensive Mansion

Rundown Palace

Ruin Crypt

Random Events

Sewer arrives in the mail

Store explodes

Nomad Lunges at the group

Rhapsody Lunges at the group

World

Stores

Norah's Desk Properties

Clark's Shelf of alcohol Cosmetics

Mason's Workbench Threads

Ortiz's Fireplace International

Traps

Phantasmal Killer

Poison Dart of Bravery

Objects

Desk with a False bottom

Workbench with a False bottom

Secret Shelf of alcohol

Hidden Medallion

Frying Pan of Bravery

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s teeth become serrated and triangular like a shark’s

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Fiona Clark "Fast Fingers" Merchant Painting Butterflies
Hazel Mason "Plump Fingers" Mole Batteries Cooking
Sydney Hines Weakened Peanut Butter Syrup
Norah Cooper Blacksmith Shirts Technology
Jordan Ortiz Funeral Director Whipped Cream Candy

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).