The Director Welcomes You

The Suddenly Regal Agent

#1f90aa

Location

Windy, Stormy Nauru

Time of Day

0:21

Extraction Point

40 Miles SWW

Time to Complete

11 Hours

Detectives,
It seems "Junior Sphinx" has gone level 3. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a dollar on the ground at the Fallen King". We need you to eliminate them, Suddenly. Their last known location was recorded at 01:10. You have a Mechanical Stapler as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Anna Santiago

Alias

"Junior Sphinx"

Features

5' 6"

Green eyes

Large deep scar / Right leg

Organization

The Agency of Prehensile Cubicle

Emotions

Intrigued

Personality

Suddenly Boiled

Motive

Take over a country for a love interest

Bodyguard

Peter the "Dusty Succubus"

Physical Size

Miniature

Story

Additional Locations

The Regal Masquerade

Hidden Manor

Downfall Festival

Random Events

Ninja Is being tortured

Dracula Adopts a nearby child

Bag of Lemons is robbed

Gunshot Bursts loudly

World

Stores

Tristan's Metal chair Worldwide

Campos's Doorway Du jour

Manning's Bible Ventures

Foster's Satchel Beauty Stop

Traps

Tripping Chain

Insanity Mist Vapor of Downfall

Objects

Metal chair children's replica

Bible children's replica

Secret Doorway

Hidden Blades

Guthook of Downfall

Wand of Wonder

Next permanent spell cast by caster fails in 1d4 rounds

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Michael Campos "Big Knuckles" Merchant Dice Soccer
Leilani Manning "Mad Brains" Mole Technology Lamps
John Simpson Police Officer Socks Acorns
Tristan Lindsey Cleaner Bracelets Television
Piper Foster Weakened Paper Candles

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).