The Director Welcomes You

The Axe Fragility Incident

#1fed9c

Location

Arid, Gloomy El Salvador

Time of Day

19:53

Extraction Point

71 Miles SW

Time to Complete

27 Hours

Eyeballs,
I have sent you to descend into Underground Jungle to look for a suspect by the name "Mad Sloth". This mission is counterintelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to discover their location. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A traveling merchant appears at the Big Momma".

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

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Alyssa Yates

Alias

"Mad Sloth"

Features

5' 1"

Gray eyes

Stretch Marks / Right foot

Organization

The Union of Weak Fork

Emotions

Caring

Personality

Daintily Green

Motive

Disrupt the military to lead a mutiny

Bodyguard

Jessica the "Jolly Worm"

Physical Size

Miniature

Story

Additional Locations

The Worn Suburbs

Underground Circus

Demise Jungle

Random Events

Box of Cigarette Is hurled at the adventurers

Mutant Is accused by the law

Buccaneer Is throwing a BBQ

Dancer Is being tortured

World

Stores

Payton's Clamp Creative

Price's Lamp Supermarket

Logan's Stamp Set Supermarket

Martinez's Coat of Arms Supermarket

Traps

Swinging Block

Wall Blade of Fragility

Objects

Clamp children's replica

Stamp Set made of heavy metal

Secret Lamp

Hidden Whip

Sword of Fragility

Wand of Wonder

All weapons within 50 yards are edible

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Aurora Price "Mad Ankles" Merchant Batteries Paperclips
Khloe Logan "Right Cappuccinos" Mole Notes Batteries
Fiona Oliver Judge Tissues Peanut Butter
Payton Parker Judge Essential Oils Chocolate
Dawson Martinez Dog surfing instructor Broccoli Cellphones

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).