The Director Welcomes You

The Curvy Annihilation Incident

#123dcf

Location

Gloomy, Cool Togo

Time of Day

21:15

Extraction Point

174 Miles S

Time to Complete

31 Hours

Meddlers,
It seems "Sharp Kangaroos" has gone level 8. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a sword in a stone at the Rainbow Mountain". We need you to eliminate them, Dreamily. Their last known location was recorded at 06:16. You have a Evil Barstool as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Bailey Martin

Alias

"Sharp Kangaroos"

Features

5' 6"

Blue eyes

Large deep scar / Left hand

Organization

The League of Boiled Governor

Emotions

Hateful

Personality

Dreamily Shapely

Motive

Take over a government out of survival

Bodyguard

Ralphie the "Shallow Giraffe"

Physical Size

Tremendous

Story

Additional Locations

The Cold Lagoon

Ancient Chateau

Competency Citadel

Random Events

Demon catches on fire

Hoard Integrates silently into the group

Bank Bursts loudly

Nomad Glistens gently

World

Stores

Amir's Trinket Logistics

Peterson's Loveseat Worldwide

Becker's Mantle Specialities

Walters's Skeletal Animal Factory

Traps

Bear Trap

Built-to-Collapse Wall of Annihilation

Objects

Trinket made of heavy metal

Mantle children's replica

Secret Loveseat

Hidden Targe

Helmet of Annihilation

Wand of Wonder

Caster is sought by a band of militant vivisectionists

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Alan Peterson "Plump Bagels" Merchant Socks Jazz
Leo Becker "Two Legs" Mole Rabbits Photography
Peyton Chang Cranky Notes Shirts
Amir Carter Tailor Cellphones Broccoli
Piper Walters Musician Butterflies Jigsaw Puzzles

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).