The Director Welcomes You

Who is Tim Skin?

#1d5663

Location

Hot, Cool Russia

Time of Day

8:5

Extraction Point

45 Miles W

Time to Complete

25 Hours

Investigators,
It seems "Nice Cat" has gone level 4. They have been broadcasting this message "A vagrant asks for food at the old bridge". We need you to eliminate them, Queerly. Their last known location was recorded at 20:18. You have a Explosive Toy as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Miles Howard

Alias

"Nice Cat"

Features

6' 7"

Hazel eyes

Small mole / Neck

Organization

The Fraternity of Slatted Library

Emotions

Lonely

Personality

Queerly Fierce

Motive

Take over a government to be left alone

Bodyguard

Tim the "Brief Leech"

Physical Size

Huge

Story

Additional Locations

The Drooping Maze

Crowded Island

Well-being Crypt

Random Events

Goblet Is being kidnapped

Wanderer gathers near a point of interest

Vagrant scurries by

Softball Is being tortured

World

Stores

Maximus's Plaster Bust International

Neal's Cutting board Little shop

Barber's Trunk Discount

Owen's Butter Churner Brothers

Traps

Ghoul Touch

Bricks from Ceiling of Peace

Objects

Plaster Bust made of heavy metal

Trunk that is glowing

Secret Cutting board

Hidden Bottle

Coif of Peace

Wand of Wonder

All reflective surfaces in the area display imaginary scenes

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Audrey Neal "Small Lemons" Merchant Music Mirrors
Rowan Barber "Right Scars" Mole Mirrors Lions
Liliana Klein Graphic Designer Eggs Stickers
Maximus Daniel Elder Soccer Chickens
Daniela Owen Scientist Singing Sailboats

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).