The Director Welcomes You

The Loquacious Circus Secrecy

#57ea97

Location

Windless, Mild Gabon

Time of Day

9:46

Extraction Point

83 Miles E

Time to Complete

47 Hours

Investigators,
I have sent you to descend into Compact Spring to look for a suspect by the name "The Cyclops". This mission is intelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to assassinate the target. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "Distant sounds of screaming at the Fallen King".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Delicate File in your kit to help.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Leo Newman

Alias

"The Cyclops"

Features

6' 3"

Green eyes

Large moles / Right hand

Organization

The Authority of Lemon War

Emotions

Irritated

Personality

Commonly Invisible

Motive

Disrupt the military in pursuit of knowledge

Bodyguard

Timmy the "Strung Out kobold"

Physical Size

Lanky

Story

Additional Locations

The Loquacious Tower

Touristy Carousal

Optimism House

Random Events

Nearby Gas Tank is loose

Bag of Lemons Salutes the adventurers

Vagabond is being loudly arrested

Deadbeat approaches

World

Stores

Gabriella's Vase International

Harrison's Tea Pot Wardrobe

Mack's Painting Cosmetics

Griffith's crutch Hole

Traps

Insanity Mist Vapor

Scything Blade of Pleasure

Objects

Vase made of heavy metal

Painting children's replica

Secret Tea Pot

Hidden Collar

Sword of Pleasure

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s head is permanently surrounded by dense fog

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Mary Harrison "Meaty Tongues" Merchant Rubber Stamps Scarves
David Mack "Four Brains" Mole Flowers Dice
Noah Larson Headhunter Squirrels Drinking
Gabriella Green Phantom Hammers Potatoes
Santiago Griffith Statistician Coffee Houses

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).