The Director Welcomes You

Atelier Royale

#41ecb4

Location

Dull, Hot Ethiopia

Time of Day

18:10

Extraction Point

56 Miles NW

Time to Complete

19 Hours

Agents,
It seems "Violet Owlman" has gone level 4. They have been broadcasting this message "A pool of blood at the giants footsteps". We need you to eliminate them, Wrongly. Their last known location was recorded at 10:21. You have a Feminine Pair of Gloves as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Ayden Holt

Alias

"Violet Owlman"

Features

5' 2"

Heterochromia eyes

Faint curved scar / Left eye

Organization

The Club of Cocky Fly

Emotions

Indifferent

Personality

Wrongly Rotten

Motive

Take over a country out of jealousy

Bodyguard

Jimmy the "Loose Opossums"

Physical Size

Full

Story

Additional Locations

The Microscopic Shelter

Underground Carousal

Ruin Shelter

Random Events

Potato Becomes wounded

Chauvinist screams at the top of their lungs

Bellhop Is being tortured

Delivery Guy Attempts to rob a bank

World

Stores

Claire's crutch Atelier

Leon's Fruit Bowl Mall

Nichols's Satchel Industries

Cooper's End Table Wardrobe

Traps

Camouflaged Pit

Scything Blade of Happiness

Objects

crutch that is glowing

Satchel with a False bottom

Secret Fruit Bowl

Hidden Collar

Stave of Happiness

Wand of Wonder

Target is covered by dozens of slugs and snails

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Londyn Leon "Green Cappuccinos" Merchant Whipped Cream Dolphins
Mattie Nichols "Tough Thumbs" Mole Trucks Jigsaw Puzzles
Riley Lawrence Frazzled Doves Honey
Claire Logan Psychiatrist Horses Trees
James Cooper Animator Rubber Bands Easter

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).