The Director Welcomes You

The Jury Influence Incident

#161165

Location

Foul, Chilly Kazakhstan

Time of Day

7:9

Extraction Point

75 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

41 Hours

Scrutinizers,
I have sent you to the inside of a Overpopulated Motel to look for a suspect by the name "Left Werewolf". This mission is counterintelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to deactivate their resources. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A stranger can be seen in the shadows at the Crossroads".

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

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Evelyn Silva

Alias

"Left Werewolf"

Features

4' 7"

Brown eyes

Large deep scar / Right foot

Organization

The Clique of Wrong Trick

Emotions

Exhausted

Personality

Greatly Slatted

Motive

Take over a government to cause catastrophe

Bodyguard

Peter the "Surrogate Mutants"

Physical Size

Minuscule

Story

Additional Locations

The Rare Tower

Expensive Festival

Death Business

Random Events

Gypsy is being loudly arrested

Bear Salutes the adventurers

Spectator scurries by

Procession Spontaneously disintegrates

World

Stores

Raelynn's Portrait Threads

Tyler's Cabinet Industries

Guzman's Marionette Industries

Evans's Stairwell Cosmetics

Traps

Ice lock

Flooded Corridor of Influence

Objects

Portrait that has been hollowed out

Marionette that is glowing

Secret Cabinet

Hidden Hatchet

Goblet of Influence

Wand of Wonder

Nearest town is populated entirely by undead

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Naomi Tyler "Fat Waffles" Merchant Scarves Rabbits
Tricia Guzman "Obese Scars" Mole Painting Sailboats
Silas Boyd Architect Mirrors Singing
Raelynn Bowers Demon Robots Rock n' Roll
Jaxon Evans Elder Dinosaurs Socks

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).