The Director Welcomes You

Chic Chåteau Royale

#c2fbc6

Location

Dull, Foggy Burundi

Time of Day

12:40

Extraction Point

41 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

16 Hours

Operatives,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Watch that is glowing. Get to Burundi at 18:04

Good Luck.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Max Strickland

Alias

"Dull Gnome"

Features

6' 5"

Red eyes

Large moles / Left hand

Organization

The Commission of Ancient Volcano

Emotions

Relaxed

Personality

Fully Jocular

Motive

Take over a government to lust for power

Bodyguard

Timmy the "Prickly Minotaur"

Physical Size

Minute

Story

Additional Locations

The Rainy Crypt

Desolate Crypt

Purity Forest

Random Events

Husband Bounces oddly

Chicken gathers near a point of interest

Donkey skins a cat with his teeth

Box of Mice Is frozen into a block of ice

World

Stores

Nathan's Watch Chic Chåteau

Lynch's Fireplace Bazaar

Kelley's Cabinet Outlet

Schneider's Footlocker Supermarket

Traps

Lightning Bolt

Moving Executioner Statue of Fatality

Objects

Watch that is glowing

Cabinet made of heavy metal

Secret Fireplace

Hidden Staff

Bottle of Fatality

Wand of Wonder

Target’s weapon renders him mute for 1d8 hours after each battle

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Laila Lynch "Orange Noses" Merchant Rocks Syrup
Abigail Kelley "Black Lungs" Mole Candles Cellphones
Michelle Meyer Graphic Designer Balloons Trucks
Nathan Gonzalez Farmer Batteries Washing Machines
Alaina Schneider Bruised Tissues Eggs

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).