The Director Welcomes You

Duck, Voyage, Dragon, Spy.

#e3f0a8

Location

Sunny, Sunny Finland

Time of Day

4:13

Extraction Point

185 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

19 Hours

Examiners,
It seems "Quiet Ogre" has gone level 6. They have been broadcasting this message "A traveling merchant appears at the Sacrificial Hole". We need you to eliminate them, Abnormally. Their last known location was recorded at 24:17. You have a Clandestine Ashtray as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Annabelle Graves

Alias

"Quiet Ogre"

Features

4' 2"

Hazel eyes

Large moles / Right foot

Organization

The Clique of Screeching Dragon

Emotions

Inferior

Personality

Abnormally Tinkling

Motive

Take over a government to lust for power

Bodyguard

Ralphie the "Sore Seal"

Physical Size

Hefty

Story

Additional Locations

The Nutty Lagoon

Archaic Tower

Fate Manor

Random Events

Buccaneer Is being detained

Bag of Flour Calls menacingly

Goblet Becomes wounded

Chunk of Beef Integrates silently into the group

World

Stores

Vincent's Toolbox Supermarket

Snyder's Potted Plant Bureau

Mullins's Shelf of alcohol Ventures

Larson's Hat Beauty Stop

Traps

Chain Lightning

Ceiling Pendulum of Good Spirits

Objects

Toolbox with a False bottom

Shelf of alcohol that has been hollowed out

Secret Potted Plant

Hidden Greaves

Camera of Good Spirits

Wand of Wonder

The ground now at target’s feet is forever barren of vegetation

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Harrison Snyder "Violet Muscles" Merchant Potatoes Lions
Eden Mullins "The Livers" Mole Peanut Butter Notes
Daisy Parker Librarian Lamps Flowers
Vincent Gutierrez Townsfolk Cartography Balloons
Amaya Larson Accountant Notes Christmas

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).