The Director Welcomes You

The Limited Nut Predicament

#e3d253

Location

Breezy, Bright Central African Republic

Time of Day

6:45

Extraction Point

113 Miles NW

Time to Complete

14 Hours

Investigators,
I have sent you to climb a Crowded Volcano to look for a suspect by the name "Green Merfolk". This mission is black bag. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to disable the bomb. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The earth shakes briefly at the Seven Dead".

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

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Norah Cook

Alias

"Green Merfolk"

Features

5' 3"

Green eyes

Small mole / Right thumb

Organization

The Task Force of Uninterested Thumb

Emotions

Receptive

Personality

Reluctantly Jagged

Motive

Disrupt the military to lead a mutiny

Bodyguard

Tony the "Loose Orcs"

Physical Size

Narrow

Story

Additional Locations

The Limited Fortress

Hidden Grove

Enjoyment Lagoon

Random Events

Dead Animal Attempts to rob a bank

Toilet Becomes wounded

Cat Is accused by the law

Diary scurries by

World

Stores

Brandon's Pipe Unlimited

Morrison's Chaise Properties

Little's Medallion Convenience store

Taylor's Stairwell Productions

Traps

Acid Fog

Water-Filled Room of Cleanliness

Objects

Pipe children's replica

Medallion that has been hollowed out

Secret Chaise

Hidden Staff

Katana of Cleanliness

Wand of Wonder

Caster sees colorful ribbons swirling in the air around him

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Khloe Morrison "Casual Tongues" Merchant Slippers Pillows
Julian Little "Left Parmigianas" Mole Hammers Water
Maverick Dean Old Timer Books Writers
Brandon Morrison Architect Honey Cookies
Jocelyn Taylor Statistician Singing Writers

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).