The Director Welcomes You

Smoke, Election, Donkey, Spy.

#c92966

Location

Humid, Windy United Kingdom

Time of Day

6:53

Extraction Point

29 Miles NE

Time to Complete

24 Hours

Ambassadors,
It seems "Heavy Vampires" has gone level 5. They have been broadcasting this message "A traveling merchant appears at the Golden Fire". We need you to eliminate them, Quietly. Their last known location was recorded at 00:17. You have a Sharp Toothbrush as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Layla Griffin

Alias

"Heavy Vampires"

Features

7' 10"

Blue eyes

Large deep scar / Left eye

Organization

The Association of Careful Donkey

Emotions

Irritated

Personality

Quietly Prominent

Motive

Take over a country for pure destruction

Bodyguard

Chuckie the "Shrill ghost"

Physical Size

Little

Story

Additional Locations

The Invisible Festival

Compact Park

Expiration Suburbs

Random Events

Robber Balances on a ledge

Bank skins a cat with his teeth

Husband Is being detained

Feminist Calls menacingly

World

Stores

Skylar's Coat Bureau

Cooper's Ceramic Crock Cosmetics

Bowman's Letter Opener Technologies

Davis's Counter Solutions

Traps

Phantasmal Killer

Large Net of Delirium

Objects

Coat children's replica

Letter Opener that has been hollowed out

Secret Ceramic Crock

Hidden Glasses

Book of Delirium

Wand of Wonder

Caster thinks that his death will bring about the apocalypse

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Judy Cooper "Indigo Pinky's" Merchant Sticks Jigsaw Puzzles
Elizabeth Bowman "Four Livers" Mole Dice Rubber Stamps
Julia Hamilton Soul Painting Attention
Skylar Stewart Fortune Cookie Writer Soda Books
Autumn Davis Journalist Photography Eggs

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).