The Director Welcomes You

Burlesque, Splint, Reindeer, Spy.

#bbcc21

Location

Miserable, Bright Guatemala

Time of Day

7:43

Extraction Point

32 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

44 Hours

Shadows,
It seems "Nice Abominable Snowman" has gone level 5. They have been broadcasting this message "An object nearby starts bleeding at the Great Shadow". We need you to eliminate them, Always. Their last known location was recorded at 01:14. You have a Clandestine Newspaper as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jonah Mueller

Alias

"Nice Abominable Snowman"

Features

6' 8"

Gray eyes

Small mole / Right hand

Organization

The Office of Many Reindeer

Emotions

Elated

Personality

Always Scary

Motive

Take over a country out of jealousy

Bodyguard

Jackie the "Broken gorgon"

Physical Size

Paltry

Story

Additional Locations

The Boned Carousal

Crowded Tower

Delight Barn Dance

Random Events

Panhandler Is accused by the law

Renaissance Faire Lunges at the group

Dozen Eggs overflows

Skeleton Bounces oddly

World

Stores

Ryker's Bible Department store

Fisher's Wingback chair Wardrobe

Robertson's Certificate Cosmetics

Salazar's Chaise Threads

Traps

Collapsing Column

Acid Arrow of Casualties

Objects

Bible that has been hollowed out

Certificate that has been hollowed out

Secret Wingback chair

Hidden Helmet

Credit Card of Casualties

Wand of Wonder

All weapons within 50 yards are +1 ToHit until dawn tomorrow

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Landon Fisher "Right Matzo Balls" Merchant Rubber Bands Potatoes
Valerie Robertson "One Hands" Mole Cooking Essential Oils
Aubree Maldonado Frazzled Essential Oils Money
Ryker Steele Journalist Lamps Rocks
Robin Salazar Butcher Hamsters Shirts

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).