The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Slimy Juice

#e1fbf6

Location

Gloomy, Icy Gabon

Time of Day

6:56

Extraction Point

25 Miles NE

Time to Complete

16 Hours

Operatives,
It seems "Short giant" has gone level 6. They have been broadcasting this message "Tracks of wolves can be seen at the Wizard's Scar". We need you to eliminate them, Keenly. Their last known location was recorded at 09:17. You have a Bulbous Atlas as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Allison Webb

Alias

"Short giant"

Features

6' 10"

Gray eyes

Small mole / Left thumb

Organization

The Commission of Faint Leg

Emotions

Hurt

Personality

Keenly Sensual

Motive

Take over a country to control the Children

Bodyguard

James the "Fat Orcs"

Physical Size

Poor

Story

Additional Locations

The Slimy Barn Dance

Compact City

Euphoria Forge

Random Events

Chanting Cult Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

Nearby Gas Tank Finds gold in the water

Milk Shipment Is being kidnapped

Wedding Cake explodes

World

Stores

Alexis's File Outlet

Byrd's Bookcase Closet

McGee's Bottle Logistics

Horton's Pocket watch Collective

Traps

Earthquake

Water-Filled Room of Catastrophe

Objects

File children's replica

Bottle children's replica

Secret Bookcase

Hidden Katana

Javelins of Catastrophe

Wand of Wonder

Someone nearby wakes tomorrow in the king’s torture chamber

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Aria Byrd "Golden Boy" Merchant Chocolate Physics
Margaret McGee "Gross Boy" Mole Writers Sharks
Timothy Rodgers Banker Bracelets Cookies
Alexis Holmes Cobbler Jazz Dinosaurs
George Horton Lawyer Bread Broccoli

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).