The Director Welcomes You

The Girls Sanitation Incident

#7291a0

Location

Rainy, Calm Burkina Faso

Time of Day

21:30

Extraction Point

170 Miles N

Time to Complete

30 Hours

Snoopers,
We need your help. Agent Luke Vasquez has gone missing and we believe "No Bear" is responsible. They were last seen in Burkina Faso at 24:09. The agent sent one final message – "A vagrant asks for food at the Ivory Gate". Take this Robotic Scissor - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Rowan Schneider

Alias

"No Bear"

Features

7' 5"

Gray eyes

Faint curved scar / Left middle finger

Organization

The Commission of Wet Jail

Emotions

Cautious

Personality

Quickly Fresh

Motive

Disrupt the military out of desperation

Bodyguard

Emily the "Encrusted Drunken Irish Guy"

Physical Size

Small-scale

Story

Additional Locations

The Judicious Arcade

Hidden Carousal

Fire Carnival

Random Events

Hoard overflows

Buccaneer screams at the top of their lungs

Goblet Finds gold in the water

Box of Mice Is accused by the law

World

Stores

Harper's Statuette Unlimited

Juarez's Crock Atelier

Hawkins's Watch Warehouse

Vasquez's Faberge Egg Logistics

Traps

Bricks from Ceiling

Black Tentacles of Sanitation

Objects

Statuette that is glowing

Watch that has been hollowed out

Secret Crock

Hidden Whip

Hammers of Sanitation

Wand of Wonder

Anyone drinking a potion shrinks by 50% for its duration

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Sarah Juarez "Indigo Heels" Merchant Scarves Balloons
Ximena Hawkins "Mini Pastrami's" Mole Scarves Sun Glasses
Mila Tran Old Man Soap Money
Harper Blake Waiter Attention Money
Luke Vasquez Master Distiller Cartography Ice Cubes

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).