The Director Welcomes You

Strawberry, Space, Jam, Spy.

#33911d

Location

Dull, Calm Fiji

Time of Day

19:43

Extraction Point

58 Miles SE

Time to Complete

17 Hours

Scrutinizers,
We need your help. Agent Natalie Steele has gone missing and we believe "Cheap Beholder" is responsible. They were last seen in Fiji at 02:01. The agent sent one final message – "A shadow passes at the witch's mound". Take this Colorful Watch - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Ariana Deleon

Alias

"Cheap Beholder"

Features

4' 9"

Heterochromia eyes

Stretch Marks / Left hand

Organization

The Society of Loquacious Jam

Emotions

Concern

Personality

Busily Nutty

Motive

Disrupt the military out of jealousy

Bodyguard

David the "Greasy Zombie"

Physical Size

Puny

Story

Additional Locations

The Baleful Forge

Archaic Shelter

Disaster Palace

Random Events

Beggar screams at the top of their lungs

Rustler Finds gold in the water

Nomad Protests

Bottle of Soy Sauce Crashes slowly

World

Stores

Penelope's Glass Jars Factory

Romero's Pipe Group

Henry's Pedestal Collective

Steele's Workbench Market

Traps

Portcullis

Floor Net of Sanitation

Objects

Glass Jars that has been hollowed out

Pedestal with a False bottom

Secret Pipe

Hidden Spoon

Wrench of Sanitation

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s spellbook is indestructible but appears to be decaying

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Arabella Romero "Casual Dumplings" Merchant Snowglobes Candles
Abigail Henry "Junior Feet" Mole Notes Sun Glasses
Axel Delgado Exhausted Sponges Tea
Penelope Richardson Elevator Mechanic Cooking Books
Natalie Steele Artist Peanut Butter Potatoes

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).