The Director Welcomes You

Who is Nancy Library?

#56b321

Location

Warm, Wet Saudi Arabia

Time of Day

20:18

Extraction Point

68 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

48 Hours

Ambassadors,
We need your help. Agent Zayden Scott has gone missing and we believe "Small Pheonix" is responsible. They were last seen in Saudi Arabia at 01:15. The agent sent one final message – "The earth shakes briefly at the Dead Forest". Take this Angry Lighter - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Justin Maxwell

Alias

"Small Pheonix"

Features

6' 5"

Green eyes

Large deep scar / Right leg

Organization

The Fraternity of Nutritious Catamaran

Emotions

Pity

Personality

Powerfully Rough

Motive

Take over a country to escape their destiny

Bodyguard

Nancy the "Dank Kaiju"

Physical Size

Considerable

Story

Additional Locations

The Rare Suburbs

Deserted Lagoon

Endownment Lagoon

Random Events

Chanting Cult Is throwing a BBQ

Transport Lunges at the group

Herd of Chicken emerges

Softball Is frozen into a block of ice

World

Stores

Eleanor's Metal chair Consulting

Avila's Clamp Little shop

Hunt's Tapestry Department store

Scott's Stool Cosmetics

Traps

Crushing Room

Acid Fog of Weakness

Objects

Metal chair with a False bottom

Tapestry children's replica

Secret Clamp

Hidden Shoe

Polearm of Weakness

Wand of Wonder

Target’s hands and feet are scarred with arcane symbols

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Jocelyn Avila "Meaty Ankles" Merchant Flowers Dice
Sophie Hunt "Red Pinky's" Mole Toilets Horses
Lauren Flores Flirty Stickers Sharp Things
Eleanor Sims Hairdresser Horses Painting
Zayden Scott Veterinarian Whipped Cream Lamps

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).