The Director Welcomes You

The Hospital Oblivion Incident

#775481

Location

Stormy, Humid Canada

Time of Day

6:52

Extraction Point

186 Miles NEE

Time to Complete

28 Hours

Agents,
We need your help. Agent Harrison Boyd has gone missing and we believe "Nice Horse" is responsible. They were last seen in Canada at 02:24. The agent sent one final message – "The group finds a dead fish at the Big Momma". Take this Invisible Camera - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Genesis Carr

Alias

"Nice Horse"

Features

7' 8"

Red eyes

A second belly button / Left hand

Organization

The Sisterhood of Prehensile Monument

Emotions

Ambivalent

Personality

Mechanically Intransigent

Motive

Make a lot of money for revenge

Bodyguard

Frankie the "Cuddly Ghost"

Physical Size

Big

Story

Additional Locations

The Wet Island

Overpopulated Festival

Exuberance Barn Dance

Random Events

Dead Animal Balances on a ledge

Crying Child Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

Druid Gets their hand chopped off

Fairy Spontaneously disintegrates

World

Stores

Isaac's Fruit Bowl Beauty Stop

Kramer's Vase Convenience store

Nichols's Bench Warehouse

Boyd's Certificate Closet

Traps

Insanity Mist Vapor

Beehive of Oblivion

Objects

Fruit Bowl children's replica

Bench that has been hollowed out

Secret Vase

Hidden Falchion

Notebook of Oblivion

Wand of Wonder

The ground now at target’s feet acquires sentience

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Adam Kramer "Cheap Pastrami's" Merchant Honey Limes
Amaya Nichols "No Legs" Mole Photography Painting
Naomi Chandler Vision Mirrors Baseball
Isaac Weber Plumber Trucks Sticky Notes
Harrison Boyd The Body Rabbits Plushies

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).