The Director Welcomes You

Who is Terry Shovel?

#9363a8

Location

Foul, Wet Germany

Time of Day

18:44

Extraction Point

28 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

22 Hours

Undercover Emissaries,
I have sent you to descend into Touristy Acropolis to look for a suspect by the name "Wild Camel". This mission is anti-surveillance. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to retrieve the stolen intel. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A mysterious key is found on the ground at the Painted Sands".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Glowing Clamp in your kit to help.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Sophie Dennis

Alias

"Wild Camel"

Features

6' 1"

Heterochromia eyes

Small mole / Right arm

Organization

The Club of Insolent Giraffe

Emotions

Afraid

Personality

Owlishly Derogatory

Motive

Take over a country for honor

Bodyguard

Terry the "Tiring Centaur"

Physical Size

Vast

Story

Additional Locations

The Mealy Creek

Overpopulated Carousal

Demise Citadel

Random Events

Thief catches on fire

Vegetable Bounces oddly

Demon Is throwing a BBQ

Dead Animal Gets their hand chopped off

World

Stores

Adaline's Skeletal Animal Emporium

Chambers's Shelf of alcohol Little shop

Evans's Taxidermy animal Solutions

Quinn's Pedestal Atelier

Traps

Phantasmal Killer

Fusillade of Darts of Indecision

Objects

Skeletal Animal children's replica

Taxidermy animal children's replica

Secret Shelf of alcohol

Hidden Helmet

Lighter of Indecision

Wand of Wonder

The pages of caster’s spellbook are indestructible

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Dominic Chambers "Orange Hot Dogs" Merchant Contracts Rubber Stamps
Isabel Evans "Quiet Brains" Mole Cousins Bread
Genesis Neal Dead Tired Lions Photography
Adaline Ortega Plumber Bells Harmonica
Adalynn Quinn Artist Candles Washing Machines

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).