The Director Welcomes You

The Surrogate Art Cliffhanger

#45f763

Location

Hot, Overcast United Arab Emirates

Time of Day

15:51

Extraction Point

27 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

27 Hours

Sleuths,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Ceramic Crock made of heavy metal. Get to United Arab Emirates at 16:20

Good Luck.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Carlos Black

Alias

"Five Nymph"

Features

6' 2"

Red eyes

Large moles / Right arm

Organization

The Commission of Petulant Metal

Emotions

Hateful

Personality

Exactly Strong

Motive

Take over a government to be left alone

Bodyguard

Jack the "Tiring Mummy"

Physical Size

Young

Story

Additional Locations

The Surrogate Barn Dance

Overpopulated Sanctuary

Sanitation Barn Dance

Random Events

Cat Bounces oddly

Safe is heard screaming

Rustler Skips merrily

Softball is robbed

World

Stores

Jayce's Ceramic Crock Solutions

Goodman's Bell Collective

Hernandez's Vase Arcade

Rojas's Potted Plant Warehouse

Traps

Rolling Rock

Poison Wall Spikes of Rage

Objects

Ceramic Crock made of heavy metal

Vase that has been hollowed out

Secret Bell

Hidden Targe

Nipple Clamp of Rage

Wand of Wonder

Caster suffers the bends as if he surfaced too quickly

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Harper Goodman "Sharp Tongues" Merchant Soda Death
Maximus Hernandez "Mad Stomachs" Mole Pillows Flashlights
Sydney Norman Envious Sticks Washing Machines
Jayce Bates Hairdresser Sticks Sticks
Willow Rojas Statistician Cookies Sponges

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).