The Director Welcomes You

The Poison Extinction Incident

#9b812d

Location

Breezy, Cloudy Pakistan

Time of Day

18:58

Extraction Point

198 Miles NW

Time to Complete

32 Hours

Shadows,
I have sent you to the bottom of a Hidden Private Jet plane to look for a suspect by the name "Italian Rhinoceroses". This mission is intelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to retrieve the stolen intel. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A pool of blood at the Screaming Waterfall".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Light Screwdriver in your kit to help.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Nathan Cruz

Alias

"Italian Rhinoceroses"

Features

4' 4"

Hazel eyes

Large moles / Right foot

Organization

The Agency of Sweet Dad

Emotions

Curious

Personality

Technically Full

Motive

Disrupt the military for pure destruction

Bodyguard

George the "Facetious Dolphin"

Physical Size

Baby

Story

Additional Locations

The Angry Island

Bustling Reef

Reservation Park

Random Events

Dancer Becomes wounded

Odor screams at the top of their lungs

Vagabond chase a suspect

Goblet stop the party and asks questions

World

Stores

William's Cabinet Factory

Meyer's Tea Pot Wardrobe

Larson's Window Unlimited

Pham's Tea Set Collective

Traps

Extended Bane

Collapsing Column of Extinction

Objects

Cabinet with a False bottom

Window that has been hollowed out

Secret Tea Pot

Hidden File

Javelins of Extinction

Wand of Wonder

Any clothing worn by caster is invisible to him while he wears it

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Karter Meyer "Obese Throats" Merchant Children's Stories Singing
Ariana Larson "Short Legs" Mole Bracelets Lamps
Bryce Lawrence Dentist Mirrors Hamsters
William Simon Tailor Snowglobes Cooking
Tyler Pham Chief Executive Officer Candy 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).