The Director Welcomes You

Little shop Royale

#33c371

Location

Cool, Gloomy Bahrain

Time of Day

17:47

Extraction Point

178 Miles NE

Time to Complete

24 Hours

Shadows,
It seems "Short Mutants" has gone level 1. They have been broadcasting this message "The earth shakes briefly at the Dragon's Sea". We need you to eliminate them, Zestfully. Their last known location was recorded at 15:14. You have a Vicious Screwdriver as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Hadley Mann

Alias

"Short Mutants"

Features

4' 9"

Hazel eyes

Faint curved scar / Left leg

Organization

The Club of Deep Acid

Emotions

Ambivalent

Personality

Zestfully Shrill

Motive

Make a lot of money justice for a wrong-doing

Bodyguard

Bobby the "Powerful Owlman"

Physical Size

Petite

Story

Additional Locations

The Low Masquerade

Pitch Black Citadel

Endownment Citadel

Random Events

VAT of Broth approaches

Hound strikes the ground

Whore arrives in the mail

Corncob gathers near a point of interest

World

Stores

Amy's Hose Little shop

Weaver's Brass Replica Worldwide

Norris's Pan Industries

Kelly's Large book Bazaar

Traps

Flooding Room

Camouflaged Pit of Destruction

Objects

Hose children's replica

Pan that has been hollowed out

Secret Brass Replica

Hidden Blades

Boiled Leather of Destruction

Wand of Wonder

Next door opened by caster leads to another plane of existence

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Daniela Weaver "Quiet Boy" Merchant Books Acorns
Matthew Norris "The Noses" Mole Robots Notes
Emerson Mack Bounty hunter Snowglobes Harmonica
Amy Adams Artist Lions Acorns
Jaxson Kelly Barber Bread Comic 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).