The Director Welcomes You

Ventures Royale

#fad246

Location

Balmy, Sunny Tunisia

Time of Day

15:6

Extraction Point

73 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

18 Hours

Meddlers,
I have sent you to the outside of a Polluted Crypt to look for a suspect by the name "Obese Camel". This mission is black ops. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to assassinate the target. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "An out of place door appears at the Sacrificial Hole".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Sharp Spoon in your kit to help.

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Penelope Lawrence

Alias

"Obese Camel"

Features

4' 7"

Green eyes

Small mole / Right eye

Organization

The Department of Drooping Squirrel

Emotions

Fondness

Personality

Knowledgeably Nice

Motive

Take over a country to please their master

Bodyguard

Peter the "Chunky Hydra"

Physical Size

Shrimpy

Story

Additional Locations

The Rainy Carousal

Crowded Lake

Euthanasia Acropolis

Random Events

Bear arrives in the mail

Box of Mice Is throwing a BBQ

Spice Box Balances on a ledge

German Trench Club stop the party and asks questions

World

Stores

Mia's Ceramic Crock Ventures

Cross's Coat Chic Chåteau

Wheeler's Shoe Horn Chic Chåteau

Hartman's Platter Arcade

Traps

Arrow

Incendiary Cloud of The Blackest Black

Objects

Ceramic Crock made of heavy metal

Shoe Horn that has been hollowed out

Secret Coat

Hidden Mace

Sling of The Blackest Black

Wand of Wonder

Target’s teeth turn as black as coal

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Landon Cross "Little Forearms" Merchant Books Sponges
Emery Wheeler "Plump Cheesecakes" Mole Batteries Plushies
Genevieve Mack Dentist Rabbits Cartography
Mia Burgess Old Man Trees Rock n' Roll
Arabella Hartman Cleaner Christmas Death

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).