The Director Welcomes You

The Moldy Health Pilgrimmage

#b7421a

Location

Arid, Foggy Somalia

Time of Day

9:6

Extraction Point

90 Miles NEE

Time to Complete

12 Hours

Agents,
We need your help. Agent Juliana Parsons has gone missing and we believe "Stiff giant" is responsible. They were last seen in Somalia at 00:12. The agent sent one final message – "A vagrant asks for food at the Fallen King". Take this Clandestine Blanket - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Guy Oconnor

Alias

"Stiff giant"

Features

6' 8"

Amber eyes

Small mole / Left thumb

Organization

The Sisterhood of Thousands Veil

Emotions

Fondness

Personality

Yearningly Salmon

Motive

Make a lot of money for scientific discovery

Bodyguard

Peter the "Sour Anteaters"

Physical Size

Petty

Story

Additional Locations

The Moldy Palace

Polluted Circus

Irritation Jungle

Random Events

Crowd is robbed

Alligator arrives in the mail

Bellhop skins a cat with his teeth

Sewer runs over an infant

World

Stores

Mattie's Rubber Plant Market

Diaz's Goblet Factory

Ramsey's Window Logistics

Parsons's Musical instrument Bureau

Traps

Wall Blade

Hail of Needles of Death

Objects

Rubber Plant that has been hollowed out

Window that has been hollowed out

Secret Goblet

Hidden Spear

Pants of Death

Wand of Wonder

Target’s neck attempts to devour his head

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
August Diaz "Yellow Livers" Merchant Socks Water
Arabella Ramsey "White Spleens" Mole Peanut Butter Rubber Stamps
Skylar Bowers Cosmetologist Glass Chocolate
Mattie Clarke Firefighter Comic Books Money
Juliana Parsons Dead Tired Deodorant 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).