The Director Welcomes You

Country, Bong, Calligraphy Pen, Spy.

#4af627

Location

Wet, Foul Guinea

Time of Day

0:32

Extraction Point

56 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

30 Hours

Operatives,
We need your help. Agent David Rhodes has gone missing and we believe "The Mermaid" is responsible. They were last seen in Guinea at 19:10. The agent sent one final message – "A vagrant asks for money at the Music Store". Take this Beautiful Bread - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Savannah Yang

Alias

"The Mermaid"

Features

4' 9"

Blue eyes

Faint curved scar / Neck

Organization

The Club of Boiled Calligraphy Pen

Emotions

Shocked

Personality

Occasionally Sour

Motive

Disrupt the military to inspire a rebellion

Bodyguard

John the "Gigantic gorgon"

Physical Size

Huge

Story

Additional Locations

The Mandatory Forge

Ancient Lodge

Obliteration Mansion

Random Events

Druid Is being tortured

Building approaches

Crazy Man Is being kidnapped

Biscuit Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

World

Stores

Isabella's Fire poker set Logistics

Price's Toolset Chic Chåteau

Reid's Wardrobe Emporium

Rhodes's Brass Replica Mall

Traps

Scything Blade

Burning Hands of Demise

Objects

Fire poker set that has been hollowed out

Wardrobe that is glowing

Secret Toolset

Hidden Fork

Handcuffs of Demise

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s spellbook was instrumental in the downfall of an empire

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Luna Price "Drowsy Forearms" Merchant Books Chocolate
Brooke Reid "Drowsy Pinky's" Mole Television Octopus
Daniela Armstrong Veterinarian Bracelets Dinosaurs
Isabella Larson Physician Hamsters Gym Memberships
David Rhodes Psychiatrist Notes Cartography

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).