The Director Welcomes You

Spike, Balloon, Mask, Spy.

#876f3d

Location

Cool, Cloudless Eswatini

Time of Day

1:32

Extraction Point

162 Miles E

Time to Complete

2 Hours

Undercover Emissaries,
It seems "King Troll" has gone level 2. They have been broadcasting this message "A vagrant asks for money at the Broken Face". We need you to eliminate them, Courageously. Their last known location was recorded at 24:12. You have a Feminine Paint as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Hadley Pena

Alias

"King Troll"

Features

4' 6"

Gray eyes

A second belly button / Right leg

Organization

The Club of Inexpensive Mask

Emotions

Indifferent

Personality

Courageously Uninterested

Motive

Make a lot of money to lust for power

Bodyguard

Tony the "Hirsute Sprite"

Physical Size

Baby

Story

Additional Locations

The Ambitious Maze

Touristy Jungle

Weakness Sanctuary

Random Events

Transport is robbed

Water Vessel strikes the ground

Bellhop Catches leprosy

Druid Is being kidnapped

World

Stores

John's Figurine Specialities

Shaw's Medallion Emporium

Patel's Hatrack Ventures

Tran's Urn Emporium

Traps

Blade Barrier

Acid Fog of Instability

Objects

Figurine with a False bottom

Hatrack with a False bottom

Secret Medallion

Hidden Chewing Gum

Morning Star of Instability

Wand of Wonder

Caster finds a powder that burns trolls as if it were strong acid

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Charles Shaw "Heavy Pinky's" Merchant Clocks Chili
Ariana Patel "Little Knuckles" Mole Batteries Gym Memberships
Kaleb Bell Scientist Books Peanut Butter
John Sims Paramedic Children's Stories Jazz
Sophie Tran Chief Executive Officer Cousins Hammers

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).