The Director Welcomes You

Who is Daniel Uranus?

#c8fb6d

Location

Rainy, Humid San Marino

Time of Day

24:31

Extraction Point

125 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

4 Hours

Sleuths,
It seems "Short Opossums" has gone level 4. They have been broadcasting this message "A vagrant asks for money at the graveyard". We need you to eliminate them, Monthly. Their last known location was recorded at 16:15. You have a Beautiful Wrench as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Isaiah Barrett

Alias

"Short Opossums"

Features

5' 3"

Hazel eyes

Small mole / Left thumb

Organization

The Clique of Howling Race

Emotions

Inferior

Personality

Monthly Hollow

Motive

Disrupt the military for scientific discovery

Bodyguard

Daniel the "Mossy Cat"

Physical Size

Microscopic

Story

Additional Locations

The Baleful Carnival

Pitch Black Acropolis

Darkness Circus

Random Events

Box of Mice Is throwing a BBQ

Bear is being loudly arrested

Nomad catches on fire

Butter Shipment Gets their hand chopped off

World

Stores

Anthony's Cutting board Warehouse

Clarke's Potted Plant Factory

Carr's Tea Set International

Stewart's Spice shelf Atelier

Traps

Fusillade of Darts

Fireball of Amnesia

Objects

Cutting board children's replica

Tea Set that is glowing

Secret Potted Plant

Hidden Coin

Polearm of Amnesia

Wand of Wonder

Someone nearby can turn invisible by holding a toad in his mouth

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Hayden Clarke "Drowsy Boy" Merchant Plushies Sticks
Ryan Carr "No Legs" Mole Robots Flowers
Ximena Moran Librarian Hammers Sponges
Anthony Hamilton Broker Horses Doves
Sophie Stewart Plumber Broccoli Bracelets

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).