The Director Welcomes You

The Mask Cheer Incident

#c23e9f

Location

Foggy, Bright Poland

Time of Day

13:6

Extraction Point

80 Miles SW

Time to Complete

18 Hours

Meddlers,
It seems "Heavy Ghost" has gone level 7. They have been broadcasting this message "Distant sounds of screaming at the Old battlefield". We need you to eliminate them, Queasily. Their last known location was recorded at 22:18. You have a Angry Audio Cassette as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Brody Alexander

Alias

"Heavy Ghost"

Features

7' 4"

Brown eyes

A second belly button / Right thumb

Organization

The Guild of Dazzling Burn

Emotions

Concern

Personality

Queasily Fast

Motive

Disrupt the military to lead a mutiny

Bodyguard

Tony the "Loose Fairy"

Physical Size

Diminutive

Story

Additional Locations

The Boned Tower

Desolate Fortress

Bliss Island

Random Events

Safe Adopts a nearby child

Fairy Gets their hand chopped off

Crying Child Is accused by the law

Drunk stop the party and asks questions

World

Stores

Vincent's Bed Ventures

Ward's Potted Plant Market

Wolf's Skeletal Animal Chic Chåteau

Nunez's Stairwell Productions

Traps

Symbol of Hypnosis

Ceiling Pendulum of Cheer

Objects

Bed made of heavy metal

Skeletal Animal with a False bottom

Secret Potted Plant

Hidden Morning Star

Chastity Belt of Cheer

Wand of Wonder

Nearest forest is set ablaze

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Kingston Ward "Fat Throats" Merchant Bears Football
Josiah Wolf "Short Noses" Mole Baseball Bells
Eric Reeves Exhausted Shirts Clocks
Vincent Martin Pharmacist Octopus Tigers
Avery Nunez Athlete Boxes Television

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).