The Director Welcomes You

Who is Alex Pole?

#df36d3

Location

Bright, Warm Solomon Islands

Time of Day

11:16

Extraction Point

73 Miles E

Time to Complete

11 Hours

Spy Deputies,
It seems "Casual Manticore" has gone level 4. They have been broadcasting this message "An object nearby starts bleeding at the Underwater cave". We need you to eliminate them, Yearly. Their last known location was recorded at 01:23. You have a Explosive Bolt Cutter as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Nova Hunter

Alias

"Casual Manticore"

Features

4' 11"

Blue eyes

Small mole / Left hand

Organization

The Committee of Tender Pole

Emotions

Hostile

Personality

Yearly Noisy

Motive

Disrupt the military for a love interest

Bodyguard

Alex the "Girthy Horse"

Physical Size

Vast

Story

Additional Locations

The Clean Castle

Crowded Citadel

Skill Forge

Random Events

Transport Finds gold in the water

Ninja Becomes wounded

Bellhop grabs a lady's purse

Deadbeat Is frozen into a block of ice

World

Stores

Jonathan's Pipe Threads

Kelley's Spice shelf Warehouse

Horton's Credenza Cosmetics

Walsh's Figurine Warehouse

Traps

Bricks from Ceiling

Poisoned Arrow of Vulnerability

Objects

Pipe that has been hollowed out

Credenza children's replica

Secret Spice shelf

Hidden Polearm

Bangle of Vulnerability

Wand of Wonder

When caster next enters his home, it migrates 1d20 miles

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Liam Kelley "Heavy Hot Dogs" Merchant Mirrors Rubber Bands
Arya Horton "Chunky Fingers" Mole Hammers Flowers
Rhett Love Demon Balloons Music
Jonathan Ramos Barber Coffee Batteries
Zoey Walsh Acupuncturist Cartography Honey

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).