The Director Welcomes You

Emporium Royale

#a03d53

Location

Bright, Cloudy Madagascar

Time of Day

2:52

Extraction Point

171 Miles SWW

Time to Complete

41 Hours

Silent Negotiators,
We need your help. Agent Mattie Mejia has gone missing and we believe "Chunky Yeti" is responsible. They were last seen in Madagascar at 21:20. The agent sent one final message – "An out of place door appears at the Hollow oak tree". Take this Polished Atlas - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Daniela Luna

Alias

"Chunky Yeti"

Features

7' 5"

Red eyes

Faint curved scar / Left middle finger

Organization

The Fraternity of Chubby Recliner

Emotions

Satisfied

Personality

Voluntarily Famous

Motive

Disrupt the military to please their master

Bodyguard

Tony the "Frilled Camel"

Physical Size

Massive

Story

Additional Locations

The Cerulean Jungle

Compact Pond

Joy Isle

Random Events

Wedding Cake grabs a lady's purse

Majestic Painting emerges

Crazy Man drops from the sky

Thief catches on fire

World

Stores

Adalyn's Staircase Emporium

Potter's Tea Pot Department store

Walters's Footlocker Cosmetics

Mejia's Toolbox Bureau

Traps

Floor Net

Chain Lightning of Peace

Objects

Staircase that is glowing

Footlocker that is glowing

Secret Tea Pot

Hidden Goblet

Sabre of Peace

Wand of Wonder

Target’s head is impervious to polymorph magic

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Lucia Potter "Tough Scars" Merchant Money Rubber Bands
Christopher Walters "Cheap Dumplings" Mole Contracts Candy
Miles Andrews Elevator Mechanic Slippers Jigsaw Puzzles
Adalyn Stephens Cranky Paper Hammers
Mattie Mejia Farmer Sponges 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).