The Director Welcomes You

Outlet Royale

#8d68a7

Location

Balmy, Windless Canada

Time of Day

4:49

Extraction Point

69 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

34 Hours

Investigators,
We need your help. Agent Weston Rhodes has gone missing and we believe "Golden Orcs" is responsible. They were last seen in Canada at 19:19. The agent sent one final message – "The earth shakes briefly at the Great Shadow". Take this Invisible Balloon - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Aiden Chandler

Alias

"Golden Orcs"

Features

7' 10"

Amber eyes

Large moles / Left eye

Organization

The Authority of Sadistic Monument

Emotions

Envious

Personality

Nearly Rapping

Motive

Take over a government to cause catastrophe

Bodyguard

Philip the "Brutish Rhinoceroses"

Physical Size

Gigantic

Story

Additional Locations

The Fancy Acropolis

Rundown Park

Darkness Chateau

Random Events

Hound Bounces oddly

Diary Glistens gently

Pine Branch stop the party and asks questions

Demon approaches

World

Stores

Mattie's Flower in Vase Outlet

Vazquez's Kitchen knife International

Molina's Suit of armor Little shop

Rhodes's Sconce Solutions

Traps

Swinging Block

Water-Filled Room of Optimism

Objects

Flower in Vase made of heavy metal

Suit of armor made of heavy metal

Secret Kitchen knife

Hidden Bottle

Falchion of Optimism

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s next spell causes its target to become invisible

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Charlie Vazquez "The Hearts" Merchant Doves Rabbits
Greyson Molina "Bullet Hearts" Mole Clocks Deodorant
Payton Ray Scientist Socks Water
Mattie Cooper Operator Ice Cubes Physics
Weston Rhodes Phantom Octopus Soup

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).