The Director Welcomes You

The Nefarious Hate Crisis

#c82573

Location

Chilly, Miserable Jamaica

Time of Day

18:51

Extraction Point

98 Miles SW

Time to Complete

33 Hours

Snoopers,
It seems "Dull Camel" has gone level 1. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a random cow at the Devil's barrow". We need you to eliminate them, Righteously. Their last known location was recorded at 09:14. You have a Evil Socks as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Brantley Austin

Alias

"Dull Camel"

Features

5' 5"

Red eyes

Small mole / Left middle finger

Organization

The Fraternity of Wailing Bird

Emotions

Guilty

Personality

Righteously Panicky

Motive

Make a lot of money because of a betrayal

Bodyguard

Harrison the "Sinful gorgon"

Physical Size

Sizable

Story

Additional Locations

The Nefarious Island

Expensive Creek

Fate City

Random Events

Odor catches on fire

Gunshot stop the party and asks questions

Butter Shipment stop the party and asks questions

Drunk overflows

World

Stores

Zion's Hat Market

Campbell's Staircase Hole

Olson's Music Box Atelier

Tran's Sofa Labs

Traps

Built-to-Collapse Wall

Floor Net of Amnesia

Objects

Hat made of heavy metal

Music Box with a False bottom

Secret Staircase

Hidden Spear

Key of Amnesia

Wand of Wonder

Target is 5% likely to vanish forever each time he says his name

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Camden Campbell "Dull Boy" Merchant Stickers Potatoes
Mia Olson "Wild Matzo Balls" Mole Photography Cousins
Ava McCarthy Musician Cellphones Pillows
Zion Reeves Sad Whipped Cream Money
Calvin Tran Mechanic Limes Books

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).