The Director Welcomes You

The Mailbox Happiness Incident

#8e8d2e

Location

Foggy, Windy Austria

Time of Day

5:16

Extraction Point

194 Miles NE

Time to Complete

31 Hours

Informants,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Loveseat with a False bottom. Get to Austria at 08:13

Good Luck.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Gael Goodman

Alias

"Dull Doppelganger"

Features

5' 8"

Gray eyes

Small mole / Right thumb

Organization

The Alliance of Edgy Psychiatrist

Emotions

Disgusted

Personality

Unimpressively Many

Motive

Disrupt the military to better Humanity

Bodyguard

Nicky the "Chunky Elves"

Physical Size

Huge

Story

Additional Locations

The Bewildered Grove

Compact Barn Dance

The Blackest Black Forge

Random Events

Swarm of Bees Glistens gently

Dracula arrives in the mail

Chanting Cult grabs a lady's purse

Potato Is throwing a protest

World

Stores

Melanie's Loveseat Consulting

Elliott's Chaise Ventures

Owen's Mounted Animal Emporium

Cohen's Bookcase Atelier

Traps

Crushing Room

Falling Block of Happiness

Objects

Loveseat with a False bottom

Mounted Animal children's replica

Secret Chaise

Hidden Notebook

Bracelet of Happiness

Wand of Wonder

All shields within 50 yards are impervious to fire

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Luca Elliott "Cheap Throats" Merchant Trucks Photography
Easton Owen "White Noses" Mole Trees Bracelets
Jocelyn Lowe Meteorologist Water Doors
Melanie Torres Angry Soup Squirrels
Elliot Cohen Cheerful Dolphins Flashlights

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).