The Director Welcomes You

The Reward Contentment Incident

#5610c6

Location

Overcast, Foggy Russia

Time of Day

14:21

Extraction Point

86 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

33 Hours

Investigators,
It seems "Cramped Sprite" has gone level 8. They have been broadcasting this message "A mysterious key is found on the ground at the Grey Hollow". We need you to eliminate them, Reproachfully. Their last known location was recorded at 17:13. You have a Clean Mirror as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Matteo Hanson

Alias

"Cramped Sprite"

Features

7' 3"

Blue eyes

Stretch Marks / Left foot

Organization

The Brotherhood of Square Hockey Arena

Emotions

Lonely

Personality

Reproachfully Witty

Motive

Disrupt the military to please their master

Bodyguard

Penelope the "Deep Armadillo"

Physical Size

Minuscule

Story

Additional Locations

The Garrulous Reef

Crowded House

Darkness Creek

Random Events

Wanderer is being loudly arrested

Bellhop Finds gold in the water

Box of Mice Is throwing a BBQ

Storm explodes

World

Stores

Karter's Spice shelf Wardrobe

Moss's Desk Atelier

Bradley's Fruit Bowl Bazaar

Berry's crutch Labs

Traps

Camouflaged Pit

Rolling Rock of Contentment

Objects

Spice shelf that has been hollowed out

Fruit Bowl made of heavy metal

Secret Desk

Hidden Gauntlet

Guthook of Contentment

Wand of Wonder

Someone nearby is encased up to his chin in a large glass cube

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Bentley Moss "Heavy Stomachs" Merchant Video Games Oranges
Daisy Bradley "Italian Throats" Mole Physics Money
Emma Joseph Artist Bells Essential Oils
Karter Roberts Geologist Coffee Flashlights
Tristan Berry Plumber Dinosaurs Candy

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).