The Director Welcomes You

The Dubious Psychiatrist Enigma

#cc69de

Location

Windless, Bright Haiti

Time of Day

15:27

Extraction Point

191 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

7 Hours

Ambassadors,
It seems "Stiff starfish" has gone level 9. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a dead fish at the dancing-trees". We need you to eliminate them, Upbeat. Their last known location was recorded at 13:02. You have a Light Scissor as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Hudson Avila

Alias

"Stiff starfish"

Features

5' 10"

Red eyes

Large deep scar / Left leg

Organization

The League of Heavy Buttplug

Emotions

Pleased

Personality

Upbeat Aggressive

Motive

Make a lot of money out of jealousy

Bodyguard

Nancy the "Weak Mongoose"

Physical Size

Immense

Story

Additional Locations

The Dubious Jungle

Touristy Forest

Silence Acropolis

Random Events

Husband Is being kidnapped

Chauvinist Catches leprosy

Robber Crashes slowly

Vagrant Is hurled at the adventurers

World

Stores

Oscar's Hatrack Couture

Marshall's Shelf of alcohol Convenience store

Gordon's Goblet Bureau

Lyons's Easel Supermarket

Traps

Bestow Curse

Ice lock of Annihilation

Objects

Hatrack that is glowing

Goblet made of heavy metal

Secret Shelf of alcohol

Hidden Knife

Spikes of Annihilation

Wand of Wonder

Nearest horse has been plotting against the caster for years

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Henry Marshall "Drowsy Forearms" Merchant Cellphones Bears
Brielle Gordon "Casual Pretzels" Mole Lipstick Sticks
Jonah Miles Indifferent Books Doves
Oscar Adams Judge Houses Bears
Micah Lyons Bruised Squirrels Rubber Stamps

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).