The Director Welcomes You

The Shooting Range Contentment Incident

#fae284

Location

Humid, Wet Italy

Time of Day

11:30

Extraction Point

28 Miles SSE

Time to Complete

8 Hours

Meddlers,
We need your help. Agent Julian Walton has gone missing and we believe "Plump Yeti" is responsible. They were last seen in Italy at 18:02. The agent sent one final message – "A roll of thunder at the Grey Hollow". Take this Robotic Ladder - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Olivia Phillips

Alias

"Plump Yeti"

Features

6' 11"

Green eyes

Faint curved scar / Right hand

Organization

The Association of Cocky Smoke

Emotions

Isolated

Personality

Quizzically Nutty

Motive

Take over a government to lead a mutiny

Bodyguard

Harold the "Massive starfish"

Physical Size

Lanky

Story

Additional Locations

The Ruminating Barn Dance

Archaic City

Destruction Fortress

Random Events

Panhandler scurries by

Transport Crashes slowly

Squirrel catches on fire

VAT of Broth Is accused by the law

World

Stores

Cole's Barrel Mall

Sutton's Shirt Unlimited

Patton's Wardrobe Warehouse

Walton's Workbench Du jour

Traps

Rolling Rock

Arrow of Contentment

Objects

Barrel children's replica

Wardrobe made of heavy metal

Secret Shirt

Hidden Coin

Hatchet of Contentment

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s arms are tied together in a tight knot

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Adaline Sutton "Blue Legs" Merchant Socks Attention
Jasper Patton "Quiet Tongues" Mole Easter Christmas
Camila Brewer Professional Cuddler Octopus Jigsaw Puzzles
Cole Mclaughlin Consultant Christmas Bears
Julian Walton Hotel Manager Coffee Water

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).