The Director Welcomes You

Hole Royale

#9f0114

Location

Warm, Hot Dominican Republic

Time of Day

12:30

Extraction Point

61 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

27 Hours

Examiners,
It seems "Black Gnome" has gone level 9. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a sword in a stone at the Beast's Maze". We need you to eliminate them, Wrongly. Their last known location was recorded at 02:07. You have a Angry Audio Cassette as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Lily McGuire

Alias

"Black Gnome"

Features

7' 5"

Brown eyes

Large moles / Left leg

Organization

The Clique of Irksome Spa

Emotions

Bored

Personality

Wrongly Scarce

Motive

Disrupt the military to become famous

Bodyguard

Roberto the "Immense Dolphin"

Physical Size

Tall

Story

Additional Locations

The Invisible Sanctuary

Polluted Citadel

Disaster Pond

Random Events

Woman Calls menacingly

Vagabond approaches

Fairy Is under a curse

Nearby Gas Tank Evades the law

World

Stores

Taylor's Shelf of alcohol Hole

Duncan's Quill and Ink Chic Chåteau

Lane's Shelf of alcohol Group

Jenkins's Pair of Statues Boutique

Traps

Compacting Room

Acid Arrow of Rage

Objects

Shelf of alcohol with a False bottom

Shelf of alcohol that is glowing

Secret Quill and Ink

Hidden Brass Knuckles

Pants of Rage

Wand of Wonder

If an arrow hits the target in the next 1d3 rounds, he explodes

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Landon Duncan "The Knuckles" Merchant Paper Lamps
Victoria Lane "Cheap Heels" Mole Rock n' Roll Limes
Patrick Medina Scientist Glass Easter
Taylor Patterson Hairdresser Cellphones Toilets
Malachi Jenkins Demon Writers Dice

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).