The Director Welcomes You

The Mango Reindeer Examination

#9ca5ef

Location

Balmy, Warm Jordan

Time of Day

22:30

Extraction Point

194 Miles NWW

Time to Complete

16 Hours

Agents,
It seems "No Cat" has gone level 10. They have been broadcasting this message "Distant sounds of screaming at the Tempest". We need you to eliminate them, Frenetically. Their last known location was recorded at 03:03. You have a Bulbous Tape Measure as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Kayden Glover

Alias

"No Cat"

Features

6' 4"

Heterochromia eyes

Small mole / Right eye

Organization

The Council of Puny Volcano

Emotions

Concern

Personality

Frenetically Chilly

Motive

Take over a country to save humanity

Bodyguard

Simon the "Good giant"

Physical Size

Hefty

Story

Additional Locations

The Mango Crypt

Pitch Black Jungle

Euthanasia Business

Random Events

Feminist Balances on a ledge

Tramp Gets their hand chopped off

Vagrant Salutes the adventurers

Jug of Peanut Butter Calls menacingly

World

Stores

Gabriel's Fire poker set Arcade

Santiago's Rubber Plant Hole

Reese's Letter Opener Unlimited

Peters's Coat of Arms Convenience store

Traps

Poison Needle

Large Net of Extinction

Objects

Fire poker set that has been hollowed out

Letter Opener that has been hollowed out

Secret Rubber Plant

Hidden Staff

Staff of Extinction

Wand of Wonder

Caster can turn his arms to wood for up to 1d6 rounds per day

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Grace Santiago "Cramped Spleens" Merchant Children's Stories Scarves
Weston Reese "Blue Heels" Mole Cousins Eggs
Willow Barnes Architect Rubber Stamps Tigers
Gabriel Larson Headhunter Rocks Comic Books
Christopher Peters Flirty Soda Coffee

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).