The Director Welcomes You

Specialities Royale

#95fafd

Location

Frigid, Cool Croatia

Time of Day

19:2

Extraction Point

104 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

19 Hours

Informants,
We need your help. Agent Evan Richardson has gone missing and we believe "Slow Manticore" is responsible. They were last seen in Croatia at 20:06. The agent sent one final message – "A lone flower growing at the Old battlefield". Take this Fluffy Clock - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Mckenzie Thomas

Alias

"Slow Manticore"

Features

4' 8"

Red eyes

Stretch Marks / Left thumb

Organization

The Clique of Edgy Thimble

Emotions

Attraction

Personality

Deeply Bitter

Motive

Take over a government for honor

Bodyguard

John the "Icy Owl"

Physical Size

Full-grown

Story

Additional Locations

The Huge Sanctuary

Deserted Forge

Fire Spring

Random Events

Bottle of Soy Sauce Calls menacingly

Beggar Is frozen into a block of ice

Bard Is being tortured

Nearby Gas Tank Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

World

Stores

Reese's Credenza Specialities

Cox's Cutting board Threads

Brown's Wingback chair Solutions

Richardson's Window Closet

Traps

Large Net

Wall Blade of Rage

Objects

Credenza with a False bottom

Wingback chair that has been hollowed out

Secret Cutting board

Hidden Rapier

Pen of Rage

Wand of Wonder

Caster is utterly unable to assess his own injuries

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Angel Cox "Tough Spleens" Merchant Cookies Deodorant
Justin Brown "Quiet Legs" Mole Bells Jazz
Chase Watkins Broker Pillows Chalk
Reese Duncan Butcher Jigsaw Puzzles Bears
Evan Richardson Barber Eggs Quartz Crystals

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).