The Director Welcomes You

The Pre-Pubescent System Caper

#1c2b09

Location

Hot, Cloudless Comoros

Time of Day

19:26

Extraction Point

157 Miles SSE

Time to Complete

12 Hours

Shadows,
It seems "Big kobold" has gone level 9. They have been broadcasting this message "A stranger can be seen in the shadows at the Field of Wildflowers". We need you to eliminate them, Mostly. Their last known location was recorded at 00:09. You have a Invisible Tape Measure as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jade Price

Alias

"Big kobold"

Features

4' 8"

Gray eyes

Faint curved scar / Left thumb

Organization

The Brotherhood of Didactic Management

Emotions

Tenderness

Personality

Mostly Ambitious

Motive

Make a lot of money out of greed

Bodyguard

Anthony the "Slimey Pegasus"

Physical Size

Bantam

Story

Additional Locations

The Pre-Pubescent Circus

Archaic Fortress

Skill Lake

Random Events

Dancer Is frozen into a block of ice

Horse Carriage emerges

Nearby Gas Tank Finds gold in the water

Nearby Gas Tank Protests

World

Stores

Lyla's Landscape Properties

Lawrence's Footlocker Threads

Burgess's Musical instrument Chic Chåteau

Hall's Clamp Bazaar

Traps

Bricks from Ceiling

Poisoned Arrow of Doom

Objects

Landscape children's replica

Musical instrument that has been hollowed out

Secret Footlocker

Hidden Sword

Polearm of Doom

Wand of Wonder

Target is widely recognized as a traitor to his race and species

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Christopher Lawrence "Bullet Feet" Merchant Doors Squirrels
Silas Burgess "Orange Pastrami's" Mole Eggs Chalk
Jose Sanchez Butcher Batteries Attention
Lyla Santiago Dead Tired Essential Oils Plushies
Zoe Hall Athlete Broccoli Rocks

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).