The Director Welcomes You

The Death Freshness Incident

#5bafea

Location

Gloomy, Windy Nigeria

Time of Day

12:46

Extraction Point

148 Miles NWW

Time to Complete

41 Hours

Silent Negotiators,
I have sent you to be locked inside of a Touristy Arcade to look for a suspect by the name "Silver Basilisk". This mission is clandestine. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to discover their location. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A pool of blood at the Grey Hollow".

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

β€” The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jackson Simmons

Alias

"Silver Basilisk"

Features

7' 8"

Green eyes

Faint curved scar / Left eye

Organization

The Clique of Purple Furniture

Emotions

Trusting

Personality

Limply Constipated

Motive

Disrupt the military fueled by conspiracy

Bodyguard

Jessica the "Stoned Nymph"

Physical Size

Puny

Story

Additional Locations

The Turbulent Business

Pitch Black Lake

Expiration City

Random Events

Spice Box catches on fire

Cauldron Ignites violently

Squirrel gathers near a point of interest

Spice Box emerges

World

Stores

Catherine's Bench Solutions

Flores's Kitchen table Threads

Vargas's Pan Outlet

Wong's Taxidermy animal Atelier

Traps

Scything Blade

Bear Trap of Freshness

Objects

Bench that has been hollowed out

Pan that has been hollowed out

Secret Kitchen table

Hidden Bracer

Cutlass of Freshness

Wand of Wonder

Target experiences vague nostalgia whenever he’s wounded

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
King Flores "King Boy" Merchant Glitter Squirrels
Finley Vargas "Tough Dumplings" Mole Horses Dolphins
Kaylee Reynolds Dog surfing instructor Acorns Limes
Catherine Griffin Chief Executive Officer Rock n' Roll Notes
Ashley Wong Professional Bridesmaid Tissues Pillows

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).