The Director Welcomes You

Uranus, Metal, Race, Spy.

#665790

Location

Chilly, Balmy Jamaica

Time of Day

24:32

Extraction Point

30 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

23 Hours

Spy Deputies,
As you can see you are trapped inside circle a Ancient Carousal . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Italian Horse" is responsible and they sent us this message - "The group finds a sword in a stone at the Sacrificial Hole". Your mission was black bag, achieve what you can.

Hopefully you still have that Mechanical Toothbrush hidden on you.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Mary Wilson

Alias

"Italian Horse"

Features

4' 4"

Gray eyes

Large deep scar / Left thumb

Organization

The Committee of Sinful Race

Emotions

Disappointed

Personality

Unexpectedly Jagged

Motive

Take over a country to be left alone

Bodyguard

Darnell the "Boned Doppelganger"

Physical Size

Microscopic

Story

Additional Locations

The Inexpensive Forge

Underground Forge

Annihilation Crypt

Random Events

Tramp grabs a lady's purse

Dozen Eggs approaches

Princess Is being detained

Odor Is throwing a protest

World

Stores

Hunter's Tapestry Emporium

May's Goblet Supermarket

Day's Figurine Discount

McBride's Mirror Threads

Traps

Flame Strike

Hail of Needles of Bitterness

Objects

Tapestry that has been hollowed out

Figurine with a False bottom

Secret Goblet

Hidden Ring

Hammers of Bitterness

Wand of Wonder

All ferrous metal within 50 yards is somewhat resistant to magic

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Beau May "Red Tongues" Merchant Television Washing Machines
Teagan Day "Fast Ankles" Mole Scarves Quartz Crystals
Isaac Carrillo Cobbler Octopus Cousins
Hunter Black Hairdresser Mirrors Candles
Rowan McBride Graphic Designer Rocks Tea

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).