The Director Welcomes You

Who is James Can?

#b222cb

Location

Windless, Dull Lebanon

Time of Day

24:46

Extraction Point

108 Miles SE

Time to Complete

26 Hours

Meddlers,
I have sent you to within a Desolate Casino to look for a suspect by the name "All Merfolk". This mission is black ops. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to assassinate the target. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A lone flower growing at the Snowy garrison".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Colorful Balloon in your kit to help.

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Kennedy Dunn

Alias

"All Merfolk"

Features

4' 1"

Hazel eyes

Large deep scar / Neck

Organization

The Sisterhood of Scary Bra

Emotions

Confused

Personality

Coaxingly Fit

Motive

Make a lot of money out of survival

Bodyguard

James the "Progressive Basilisk"

Physical Size

Massive

Story

Additional Locations

The Limpid Castle

Polluted House

Darkness Tower

Random Events

Carcass Spontaneously disintegrates

Herd of Chicken scurries by

Biscuit Skips merrily

Crazy Man Salutes the adventurers

World

Stores

Brody's Pipe Arcade

McCormick's Wingback chair Closet

Gardner's Rubber Plant Factory

Lynch's Drawers Consulting

Traps

Water-Filled Room

Box of Brown Mold of Instability

Objects

Pipe children's replica

Rubber Plant that has been hollowed out

Secret Wingback chair

Hidden Bracelet

Chastity Belt of Instability

Wand of Wonder

Anyone voluntarily struck by caster’s magic resents him for it

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Isla McCormick "White Muscles" Merchant Oranges Peanut Butter
Presley Gardner "Cramped Muscles" Mole Toilets Syrup
Abraham Harper Dietitian Trucks Acorns
Brody Padilla Consultant Slippers Christmas
Vivian Lynch Frazzled Bells Technology

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).