The Director Welcomes You

The Tertiary Giraffe Examination

#aaf82c

Location

Dry, Cloudy Tanzania

Time of Day

5:19

Extraction Point

34 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

33 Hours

Detectives,
We need your help. Agent Lyla Sparks has gone missing and we believe "Four Siren" is responsible. They were last seen in Tanzania at 04:03. The agent sent one final message – "A pool of blood at the Dead Forest". Take this Feminine Clock - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Violet Fletcher

Alias

"Four Siren"

Features

4' 2"

Gray eyes

Small mole / Left arm

Organization

The League of Victorious Purse

Emotions

Envious

Personality

Faithfully Jagged

Motive

Disrupt the military out of desperation

Bodyguard

Charles the "Masochistic Whale"

Physical Size

Miniature

Story

Additional Locations

The Tertiary Chateau

Archaic Isle

Instability Forge

Random Events

Nomad Is getting confiscated

Renaissance Faire runs over an infant

Box of Mice emerges

Dead Animal catches on fire

World

Stores

Brielle's Glass Jars Arcade

Brewer's Platter Chic Chåteau

Baldwin's Bureau Threads

Sparks's Creeping Vines Convenience store

Traps

Flame Strike

Ceiling Pendulum of Power

Objects

Glass Jars made of heavy metal

Bureau that has been hollowed out

Secret Platter

Hidden Javelins

Pen of Power

Wand of Wonder

Target’s body rings like an enormous church bell 1d12 times

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Lydia Brewer "Blue Cheesecakes" Merchant Lamps Trucks
Alan Baldwin "Golden Hearts" Mole Baseball Oranges
Alaina Ellis Human Statue Baseball Christmas
Brielle McCarthy Secretary Fire Sharks
Lyla Sparks Old Man Drinking Photography

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).