The Director Welcomes You

The Yawningly Turbulent Agent

#a0f89e

Location

Icy, Icy Marshall Islands

Time of Day

5:10

Extraction Point

150 Miles SE

Time to Complete

47 Hours

Examiners,
It seems "Orange Mummy" has gone level 3. They have been broadcasting this message "Clouds develop quickly at the Old battlefield". We need you to eliminate them, Yawningly. Their last known location was recorded at 11:00. You have a Explosive Lamp as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Hunter Robbins

Alias

"Orange Mummy"

Features

5' 4"

Heterochromia eyes

Small mole / Right foot

Organization

The Sisterhood of Numerous Rum

Emotions

Pleased

Personality

Yawningly Edgy

Motive

Make a lot of money to achieve their destiny

Bodyguard

Jerry the "Victorian Armadillo"

Physical Size

Toy

Story

Additional Locations

The Turbulent Chateau

Archaic Fortress

Happiness Spring

Random Events

Demon Balances on a ledge

Gypsy Is being detained

Building screams at the top of their lungs

Wanderer Is being tortured

World

Stores

Delilah's Diary Atelier

Conner's Platter Worldwide

Hunter's Grandfather Clock Hole

Rodriguez's Rug Unlimited

Traps

Acid Arrow

Bestow Curse of Death

Objects

Diary with a False bottom

Grandfather Clock children's replica

Secret Platter

Hidden Boomerang

Rapier of Death

Wand of Wonder

The moon doubles in size

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Lucia Conner "Two Lox" Merchant Horses Butterflies
Genevieve Hunter "Plump Ribs" Mole Scarves Plushies
Christian Dennis Depressed Sticky Notes Soccer
Delilah Patel Farmer Slippers Chalk
Trinity Rodriguez Bruised Sharp Things Rock n' Roll

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).