The Director Welcomes You

Discount Royale

#fa8617

Location

Cloudy, Windless New Zealand

Time of Day

2:33

Extraction Point

95 Miles NE

Time to Complete

22 Hours

Eyeballs,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Marionette made of heavy metal. Get to New Zealand at 06:07

Good Luck.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Tricia Sandoval

Alias

"Right Hydra"

Features

7' 4"

Green eyes

A second belly button / Left middle finger

Organization

The Task Force of Cooling Pump

Emotions

Trusting

Personality

Deliberately Gregorian

Motive

Disrupt the military to become rich

Bodyguard

David the "Vacant Rabbit"

Physical Size

Minute

Story

Additional Locations

The Prehistoric Grove

Archaic Manor

Redemption Fortress

Random Events

Goblet Strikes the church bell

Gunshot stop the party and asks questions

Keg Ignites violently

Druid Lunges at the group

World

Stores

Gabriel's Marionette Discount

Buchanan's Painting Bureau

Powers's Spice shelf Cosmetics

Greene's Vanity International

Traps

Flooding Room

Ice lock of Redemption

Objects

Marionette made of heavy metal

Spice shelf that has been hollowed out

Secret Painting

Hidden Goblet

Mace of Redemption

Wand of Wonder

Anyone nearby with a drawn blade races away from the target

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Carlos Buchanan "Small Falafels" Merchant Glitter Dinosaurs
Allison Powers "Little Brains" Mole Houses Jazz
Jaxson Goodman Railroad Conductor Lions Bracelets
Gabriel Fischer Cosmetologist Contracts Doors
Jose Greene Counselor Books Candy

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).