The Director Welcomes You

Error, Map, Guide, Spy.

#31e20f

Location

Dry, Cool Taiwan

Time of Day

14:23

Extraction Point

94 Miles S

Time to Complete

35 Hours

Ambassadors,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Notebook that is glowing. Get to Taiwan at 10:11

Good Luck.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Thomas Campos

Alias

"All Abominable Snowman"

Features

4' 2"

Heterochromia eyes

Large deep scar / Right foot

Organization

The Order of Feckless Guide

Emotions

Disgraced

Personality

Yesterday Calm

Motive

Make a lot of money justice for a wrong-doing

Bodyguard

Alex the "Defeated Manticore"

Physical Size

Trifling

Story

Additional Locations

The Acidic Citadel

Touristy Jungle

Contentment Palace

Random Events

Gunshot is robbed

Store Finds gold in the water

Woman runs over an infant

Panhandler Spontaneously disintegrates

World

Stores

Hailey's Notebook Cosmetics

Griffith's Notebook Little shop

Andrews's Kitchen knife International

Day's Barrel Closet

Traps

Black Tentacles

Incendiary Cloud of Perspiration

Objects

Notebook that is glowing

Kitchen knife with a False bottom

Secret Notebook

Hidden Key

Collar of Perspiration

Wand of Wonder

Target is immune to electrical attacks while carrying metal

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Naomi Griffith "Fat Churros" Merchant Quartz Crystals Batteries
Eva Andrews "Dull Boy" Mole Plushies Bracelets
Catherine Lloyd Headhunter Slippers Washing Machines
Hailey Clark Journalist Washing Machines Paper
Anastasia Day Electrician Cartography Attention

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).