The Director Welcomes You

The Yearly Hallowed Agent

#22d5c3

Location

Humid, Mild Guyana

Time of Day

17:40

Extraction Point

44 Miles S

Time to Complete

37 Hours

Agents,
We need your help. Agent Malachi Lucas has gone missing and we believe "Orange Abominable Snowman" is responsible. They were last seen in Guyana at 19:10. The agent sent one final message – "Tracks of wolves can be seen at the Turtle Rock". Take this Polished Paint Brush - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Brayden Flores

Alias

"Orange Abominable Snowman"

Features

7' 6"

Heterochromia eyes

Large moles / Left hand

Organization

The Firm of Few Upper Management

Emotions

Confused

Personality

Yearly Embarrassed

Motive

Take over a government for scientific discovery

Bodyguard

Emily the "Bitter Whale"

Physical Size

Big

Story

Additional Locations

The Hallowed Forge

Bustling Forest

Cheer Maze

Random Events

Herd of Chicken meets disaster

Reindeer Is throwing a protest

Bunny is heard screaming

Goblet is loose

World

Stores

Jaxon's Coat Little shop

Todd's Pair of Statues Little shop

Tyler's Medallion Threads

Lucas's Glass Jars Creative

Traps

Ray of Sickness

Hail of Needles of Bitterness

Objects

Coat children's replica

Medallion that has been hollowed out

Secret Pair of Statues

Hidden Falchion

Button of Bitterness

Wand of Wonder

Target’s presence causes birds to fall silent

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Faith Todd "No Throats" Merchant Water Coffee
Grayson Tyler "Two Waffles" Mole Bread Horses
Jose Glover Artist Sailboats Tissues
Jaxon Morrison Stressed Death Hammers
Malachi Lucas Cranky Glass Rabbits

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).