The Director Welcomes You

The Wet Insignia Problem

#3bf423

Location

Overcast, Rainy Dominican Republic

Time of Day

21:2

Extraction Point

98 Miles NEE

Time to Complete

25 Hours

Sleuths,
It seems "Drowsy Mummy" has gone level 1. They have been broadcasting this message "A roll of thunder at the Crossroads". We need you to eliminate them, Boldly. Their last known location was recorded at 02:18. You have a Soft Spoon as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Eleanor Nunez

Alias

"Drowsy Mummy"

Features

6' 6"

Green eyes

Small mole / Neck

Organization

The Bunch of Insidious Nature

Emotions

Humiliated

Personality

Boldly Flabby

Motive

Take over a country out of desperation

Bodyguard

Bobby the "Depressed Elephants"

Physical Size

Meager

Story

Additional Locations

The Wet Lagoon

Abandoned Circus

Happiness Fortress

Random Events

Box of Cigarette Catches leprosy

Horse Carriage Is accused by the law

Herd of Chicken skins a cat with his teeth

Crying Child Gets their hand chopped off

World

Stores

Athena's Crock International

Nguyen's Suit of armor Couture

Mendoza's Hatrack Department store

Smith's Trophy Threads

Traps

Box of Brown Mold

Swinging Block of Catastrophe

Objects

Crock with a False bottom

Hatrack with a False bottom

Secret Suit of armor

Hidden Crossbow

Sticks of Catastrophe

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s spellbook is riddled with holes like Swiss cheese

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Kylie Nguyen "Right Livers" Merchant Children's Stories Stickers
Grant Mendoza "Quiet Ribs" Mole Squirrels Broccoli
Anna Wong Midwife Death Sun Glasses
Athena Boyd Soul Honey Music
Valeria Smith Mechanic Books Television

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).