The Director Welcomes You

Atelier Royale

#2103d0

Location

Calm, Icy Bosnia and Herzegovina

Time of Day

8:5

Extraction Point

96 Miles NEE

Time to Complete

35 Hours

Snoopers,
It seems "Junior Kangaroos" has gone level 7. They have been broadcasting this message "A black cat runs past at the Devil's barrow". We need you to eliminate them, Fairly. Their last known location was recorded at 14:08. You have a Invisible Screwdriver as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Tucker Blair

Alias

"Junior Kangaroos"

Features

5' 1"

Green eyes

Stretch Marks / Right middle finger

Organization

The Authority of Wailing Prosperity

Emotions

Fearful

Personality

Fairly Lemon

Motive

Disrupt the military out of survival

Bodyguard

Tiffany the "Ugliest Hydra"

Physical Size

Soaring

Story

Additional Locations

The Lemon Reef

Expensive Port

Good Spirits Lake

Random Events

Chicken drops from the sky

Deadbeat is loose

Rhapsody Is throwing a BBQ

Transport Is getting confiscated

World

Stores

Lyla's Fruit Bowl Atelier

Medina's Footlocker Wardrobe

Sandoval's Wingback chair Mall

Wagner's Hanging Birdcage Warehouse

Traps

Water-Filled Room

Fusillade of Darts of Enjoyment

Objects

Fruit Bowl that has been hollowed out

Wingback chair that has been hollowed out

Secret Footlocker

Hidden Helmet

Sickle of Enjoyment

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s fingernails display otherworldly scenes

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Avery Medina "Quiet Falafels" Merchant Dinosaurs Syrup
Parker Sandoval "Silver Spleens" Mole Squirrels Whipped Cream
Elliot Little Hotel Manager Snowglobes Tigers
Lyla Casey Sad Sponges Dinosaurs
Charles Wagner Musician Photography Sharks

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).