The Director Welcomes You

The Calligraphy Pen Grave Consequences Incident

#6f097d

Location

Breezy, Overcast Nigeria

Time of Day

4:27

Extraction Point

31 Miles NWW

Time to Complete

32 Hours

Ambassadors,
We need your help. Agent Aaliyah Guzman has gone missing and we believe "Small Wendigo" is responsible. They were last seen in Nigeria at 12:11. The agent sent one final message – "A shadow passes at the Field of Wildflowers". Take this Sharp Blender - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Maya Gilbert

Alias

"Small Wendigo"

Features

6' 4"

Gray eyes

Small mole / Right foot

Organization

The Firm of Didactic War

Emotions

Bored

Personality

Triumphantly Wrapped

Motive

Make a lot of money to corrupt everyone

Bodyguard

James the "Modern Golem"

Physical Size

Immense

Story

Additional Locations

The Juicy Lake

Pitch Black Maze

Expiration Island

Random Events

Potato chase a suspect

Goblet Calls menacingly

Jug of Peanut Butter gathers near a point of interest

Milk Shipment drops from the sky

World

Stores

Leilani's Lounge Chair Cosmetics

Horton's Potted Plant Wardrobe

Foster's Canopy Bed Threads

Guzman's Tea Pot Brothers

Traps

Lightning Bolt

Fireball of Grave Consequences

Objects

Lounge Chair that is glowing

Canopy Bed children's replica

Secret Potted Plant

Hidden Credit Card

Chewing Gum of Grave Consequences

Wand of Wonder

Caster spends 1d4 rounds attempting to ignite his shoes

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Xander Horton "Mad Thumbs" Merchant Doves Clocks
Dominic Foster "Slow Livers" Mole Cooking Quartz Crystals
Violet Hoffman Headhunter Jazz Clocks
Leilani Andrews Railroad Conductor Television Toilets
Aaliyah Guzman Old Man Flashlights Quartz Crystals

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).