The Director Welcomes You

The Pineapple Laughter Incident

#780861

Location

Wet, Overcast Kiribati

Time of Day

0:16

Extraction Point

186 Miles NE

Time to Complete

37 Hours

Eyeballs,
We need your help. Agent Colton Swanson has gone missing and we believe "Green Unicorn" is responsible. They were last seen in Kiribati at 00:02. The agent sent one final message – "A white horse dashes past at the hive". Take this Explosive Candle - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Victor Klein

Alias

"Green Unicorn"

Features

6' 9"

Heterochromia eyes

Large deep scar / Right leg

Organization

The Association of Drooping Media

Emotions

Hopeful

Personality

Seldom Feisty

Motive

Take over a country for sibling rivalry

Bodyguard

Tiffany the "Crooked Turtle"

Physical Size

Petty

Story

Additional Locations

The Eager Port

Polluted Festival

Rage Villa

Random Events

Soup runs over an infant

Husband Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

Bank emerges

Box of Cigarette drops from the sky

World

Stores

Jason's Large book Solutions

Campos's Ceramic Crock Hole

Bowman's Pocket watch Bazaar

Swanson's Stool Beauty Stop

Traps

Fire

Ice lock of Laughter

Objects

Large book made of heavy metal

Pocket watch that has been hollowed out

Secret Ceramic Crock

Hidden Rapier

Falchion of Laughter

Wand of Wonder

Target’s weapon attacks him the next time he’s wounded in battle

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Julian Campos "Slow Knuckles" Merchant Doors Jigsaw Puzzles
Easton Bowman "Tough Matzo Balls" Mole Photography Glass
Emerson Stone Townsfolk Pillows Ice Cubes
Jason Mendez Farmer Harmonica Chickens
Colton Swanson Pharmacist Deodorant Trucks

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).