The Director Welcomes You

The Calmly Lively Agent

#2a3188

Location

Windless, Icy Indonesia

Time of Day

23:48

Extraction Point

90 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

38 Hours

Shadows,
It seems "Small Orcs" has gone level 2. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a dollar on the ground at the Painted Sands". We need you to eliminate them, Calmly. Their last known location was recorded at 16:01. You have a Robotic Clamp as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Adam Jordan

Alias

"Small Orcs"

Features

5' 10"

Brown eyes

A second belly button / Right hand

Organization

The Brotherhood of Swollen Shooting Range

Emotions

Disturbed

Personality

Calmly Cheap

Motive

Take over a government to lust for power

Bodyguard

Jackie the "Good Eel"

Physical Size

Mini

Story

Additional Locations

The Lively Crypt

Abandoned Lagoon

Cheer Circus

Random Events

Renaissance Faire Lunges at the group

Woman Bounces oddly

Spice Box Bursts loudly

Chunk of Beef is heard screaming

World

Stores

Waylon's Plaster Bust Productions

Tran's Trinket Industries

Schroeder's Vanity Cosmetics

Robles's Large book Closet

Traps

Scything Blade

Bestow Curse of Optimism

Objects

Plaster Bust children's replica

Vanity children's replica

Secret Trinket

Hidden Necklace

Lighter of Optimism

Wand of Wonder

Any open wounds in the area heal into ugly, purplish scars

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Jude Tran "One Hearts" Merchant Cats Dinosaurs
Brayden Schroeder "Stiff Fingers" Mole Chickens Washing Machines
Madeline Simmons Consultant Physics Chili
Waylon Grant Actor Trees Lions
Charlie Robles Cranky Children's Stories Cookies

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).