The Director Welcomes You

The Craigslist Redemption Incident

#48fa77

Location

Mild, Rainy Malaysia

Time of Day

10:36

Extraction Point

170 Miles SSE

Time to Complete

23 Hours

Silent Negotiators,
It seems "Wild Manticore" has gone level 3. They have been broadcasting this message "A shrine is nearby at the Music Store". We need you to eliminate them, Reproachfully. Their last known location was recorded at 15:00. You have a Clean Lamp as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jude Ramos

Alias

"Wild Manticore"

Features

6' 5"

Gray eyes

Faint curved scar / Left arm

Organization

The Board of Ugly Snowflake

Emotions

Disillusioned

Personality

Reproachfully Creepy

Motive

Make a lot of money to better Humanity

Bodyguard

Jack the "Rabid Pheonix"

Physical Size

Big

Story

Additional Locations

The Cold Peninsula

Abandoned Lagoon

Indecision Castle

Random Events

Chunk of Beef Ignites violently

Renaissance Faire Protests

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

Soup approaches

World

Stores

Maverick's Rug Collective

Ortiz's Pedestal Little shop

Jackson's Bookcase Worldwide

Daniels's Plaster Bust Bazaar

Traps

Lightning Bolt

Phantasmal Killer of Redemption

Objects

Rug with a False bottom

Bookcase children's replica

Secret Pedestal

Hidden Scimitar

Banana of Redemption

Wand of Wonder

Caster thinks that mighty deities are vying for his soul

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Hayden Ortiz "Cheap Elbows" Merchant Christmas Jazz
Payton Jackson "Chunky Bones" Mole Glitter Christmas
Teagan James Cleaner Baseball Squirrels
Maverick Dawson Elevator Mechanic Bread Mirrors
Andrew Daniels Chef Rocks Cats

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).