The Director Welcomes You

Technologies Royale

#6742b6

Location

Frigid, Cloudy Saint Lucia

Time of Day

17:48

Extraction Point

5 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

35 Hours

Undercover Emissaries,
I have sent you to be locked inside of a Compact Volcano to look for a suspect by the name "Short Minotaur". This mission is intelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to assassinate the target. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A traveling merchant appears at the Grey Hollow".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Feminine Tissues in your kit to help.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Aiden Leon

Alias

"Short Minotaur"

Features

6' 4"

Red eyes

Stretch Marks / Left hand

Organization

The Incorporated of Petite Cast Iron Pan

Emotions

Curious

Personality

Potentially Quiet

Motive

Disrupt the military to achieve their destiny

Bodyguard

Jimmy the "Faithful Lion"

Physical Size

Bantam

Story

Additional Locations

The Disgusting Spring

Polluted Forest

Extinction City

Random Events

Cat Glistens gently

Procession Finds gold in the water

Bear skins a cat with his teeth

Gang Crashes slowly

World

Stores

Miles's Brass Replica Technologies

Elliott's Oil Lamp Hole

McDaniel's Faberge Egg Bureau

Hodges's Lipstick Mall

Traps

Earthquake

Bear Trap of Demise

Objects

Brass Replica that has been hollowed out

Faberge Egg that has been hollowed out

Secret Oil Lamp

Hidden File

Book of Demise

Wand of Wonder

Next person to wound the target thinks he’ll die before nightfall

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Brianna Elliott "Obese Eyes" Merchant Teeth Rocks
Reagan McDaniel "Bullet Cheesecakes" Mole Robots Jazz
Hailey Willis Art Therapist Sharp Things Dice
Miles Santiago Headhunter Acorns Soda
Catherine Hodges Spirit Honey Baseball

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).