The Director Welcomes You

Discount Royale

#590e6b

Location

Foggy, Wet Cuba

Time of Day

21:29

Extraction Point

11 Miles E

Time to Complete

33 Hours

Shadows,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Fireplace that has been hollowed out. Get to Cuba at 11:06

Good Luck.

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jack Simpson

Alias

"Silver Elves"

Features

4' 5"

Red eyes

Large deep scar / Left thumb

Organization

The Bureau of Verdant Nerve

Emotions

Concern

Personality

Unexpectedly Depressed

Motive

Take over a government to escape their destiny

Bodyguard

Ralphie the "Skinny Elephant"

Physical Size

Paltry

Story

Additional Locations

The Aggressive Grove

Deserted Creek

Death Forest

Random Events

Thief meets disaster

Reindeer Is under a curse

Pickpocket Is under a curse

Safe Bounces oddly

World

Stores

Jason's Fireplace Discount

Hayes's Glass Jars Warehouse

Fischer's Taxidermy animal Properties

Farmer's Barrel Market

Traps

Compacting Room

Black Tentacles of Good Spirits

Objects

Fireplace that has been hollowed out

Taxidermy animal with a False bottom

Secret Glass Jars

Hidden Soy Sauce Packet

Handcuffs of Good Spirits

Wand of Wonder

Target must carry a burning candle at all times

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Ethan Hayes "Yellow Pretzels" Merchant Pillows Coffee
Roman Fischer "Plump Ribs" Mole Limes Chalk
Elias Cobb Statistician Drinking Tissues
Jason Byrd Barber Deodorant Candy
Elias Farmer Zestful Drinking Basketball

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).