The Director Welcomes You

Whip, Nut, Mural, Spy.

#a541f8

Location

Breezy, Bright Russia

Time of Day

16:55

Extraction Point

44 Miles SW

Time to Complete

19 Hours

Detectives,
I have sent you to the top of a Bustling Nuclear Power Plant to look for a suspect by the name "Slow Pheonix". This mission is anti-surveillance. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to disable the bomb. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "Tracks of wolves can be seen at the Top of the carousel wheel".

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

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jasmine Leonard

Alias

"Slow Pheonix"

Features

6' 5"

Brown eyes

Large moles / Left middle finger

Organization

The Order of Brief Mural

Emotions

Bored

Personality

Seriously Delicious

Motive

Make a lot of money for a love interest

Bodyguard

Simon the "Hot Horse"

Physical Size

Small-scale

Story

Additional Locations

The Few Manor

Overpopulated Lake

Ruin Peninsula

Random Events

Baker Finds gold in the water

Water Vessel overflows

Squirrel catches on fire

Thief explodes

World

Stores

Camila's Oil Lamp Productions

Hammond's Satchel Consulting

Becker's Potted Plant Boutique

Robinson's Plaster Bust Hole

Traps

Chain Lightning

Acid Fog of Annihilation

Objects

Oil Lamp children's replica

Potted Plant that has been hollowed out

Secret Satchel

Hidden Rock

Bracer of Annihilation

Wand of Wonder

All within 50 miles rise up against the king

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Gracie Hammond "Small Legs" Merchant Bread Batteries
Emilia Becker "Red Cheesecakes" Mole Technology Paperclips
Brielle Obrien Lawyer Potatoes Plushies
Camila Perry Actor Snowglobes Stickers
Christian Robinson Judge Boxes Trees

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).