The Director Welcomes You

The Chubby Zebra Caper

#31ec9c

Location

Dull, Balmy Romania

Time of Day

20:21

Extraction Point

22 Miles S

Time to Complete

1 Hours

Scrutinizers,
We need your help. Agent Nathaniel Phillips has gone missing and we believe "All Bigfoot" is responsible. They were last seen in Romania at 02:03. The agent sent one final message – "Distant sounds of screaming at the ruined castle". Take this Dull Toy - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Reagan Tucker

Alias

"All Bigfoot"

Features

6' 10"

Gray eyes

Faint curved scar / Left hand

Organization

The Gang of Empty Art

Emotions

Uncomfortable

Personality

Unnecessarily Dry

Motive

Take over a country to become the best

Bodyguard

Roberto the "Wet Anteaters"

Physical Size

Puny

Story

Additional Locations

The Chubby Chateau

Pitch Black Palace

Irritation Lodge

Random Events

Sewer is robbed

Milk Shipment is heard screaming

Nearby Gas Tank scurries by

Turtle Crashes slowly

World

Stores

Ivan's Drawers Department store

Wolf's Footlocker Industries

Ray's Cabinet International

Phillips's Canopy Bed Outlet

Traps

Acid Fog

Compacting Room of Purity

Objects

Drawers with a False bottom

Cabinet made of heavy metal

Secret Footlocker

Hidden Sword

Credit Card of Purity

Wand of Wonder

All magical light sources within one mile yield darkness instead

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Jacob Wolf "Nice Matzo Balls" Merchant Physics Sharks
Brooke Ray "Short Hands" Mole Paper Snowglobes
Addison Erickson Spirit Potatoes Mirrors
Ivan Buchanan Depressed Trees Glass
Nathaniel Phillips Teacher Quartz Crystals Photography

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).