The Director Welcomes You

Who is Harrison Quarter?

#a90400

Location

Gloomy, Calm Central African Republic

Time of Day

2:21

Extraction Point

30 Miles SSE

Time to Complete

40 Hours

Investigators,
We need your help. Agent Aaliyah Kramer has gone missing and we believe "Orange Merfolk" is responsible. They were last seen in Central African Republic at 18:03. The agent sent one final message – "A pool of blood at the graveyard". Take this Evil Screwdriver - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Ezra Yang

Alias

"Orange Merfolk"

Features

4' 7"

Gray eyes

Small mole / Left arm

Organization

The Bunch of Scarce Substance

Emotions

Rageful

Personality

Diligently Frilled

Motive

Make a lot of money to better Humanity

Bodyguard

Harrison the "Robust Hyena"

Physical Size

Modest

Story

Additional Locations

The Smelly Suburbs

Deserted Villa

Euphoria City

Random Events

Chauvinist Is getting confiscated

Bum Evades the law

Storm Strikes the church bell

Building Spontaneously disintegrates

World

Stores

Jesus's Basket Outlet

Tran's Shoe Horn Unlimited

Juarez's Desk Little shop

Kramer's Crock Convenience store

Traps

Portcullis

Camouflaged Pit of Secrecy

Objects

Basket made of heavy metal

Desk with a False bottom

Secret Shoe Horn

Hidden Bottle

Chewing Gum of Secrecy

Wand of Wonder

Target asserts that he’ll vanish into the sky if he’s wounded

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Alaina Tran "Big Cheesecakes" Merchant Lamps Ice Cubes
Michael Juarez "White Ribs" Mole Flashlights Potatoes
Maxwell Thornton Police Officer Harmonica Easter
Jesus Ingram Veterinarian Paper Singing
Aaliyah Kramer Angry Washing Machines Robots

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).