The Director Welcomes You

Labs Royale

#91cb02

Location

Windless, Arid Cameroon

Time of Day

14:5

Extraction Point

57 Miles NWW

Time to Complete

30 Hours

Examiners,
It seems "Big Alien" has gone level 8. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a random cow at the ruined castle". We need you to eliminate them, Seemingly. Their last known location was recorded at 20:11. You have a Explosive Bible as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Emery Chavez

Alias

"Big Alien"

Features

7' 5"

Amber eyes

Small mole / Right arm

Organization

The Board of Fat Zipper

Emotions

Brave

Personality

Seemingly Fit

Motive

Disrupt the military to escape their destiny

Bodyguard

Nick the "Infantile Sprite"

Physical Size

Full

Story

Additional Locations

The Arid Circus

Archaic Business

Weakness Citadel

Random Events

Box of Mice is being loudly arrested

Thief Gets their hand chopped off

Bottle of Soy Sauce emerges

Demon Is hurled at the adventurers

World

Stores

Piper's Barrel Labs

Figueroa's Crock Beauty Stop

Walker's Mirror Unlimited

Kennedy's Bonsai Bureau

Traps

Floor Net

Camouflaged Pit of Power

Objects

Barrel with a False bottom

Mirror children's replica

Secret Crock

Hidden Frying Pan

Notebook of Power

Wand of Wonder

Caster thinks that everything he owns has been replaced by a copy

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Scarlett Figueroa "Black Noses" Merchant Glass Writers
Isabella Walker "Black Noses" Mole Sticky Notes Candy
Rylee Franklin Journalist Lamps Writers
Piper Perry Musician Peanut Butter Drinking
Brooklyn Kennedy Midwife Bells Chili

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).