The Director Welcomes You

Who is Harold Knife?

#bbcb12

Location

Balmy, Calm Germany

Time of Day

6:40

Extraction Point

130 Miles W

Time to Complete

15 Hours

Ambassadors,
As you can see you are trapped inside approach a Archaic Sanctuary . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Cramped Rhinoceroses" is responsible and they sent us this message - "The group finds a dead fish at the dry riverbed". Your mission was counterintelligence, achieve what you can.

Hopefully you still have that Glowing Ladder hidden on you.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Roman Webster

Alias

"Cramped Rhinoceroses"

Features

5' 3"

Hazel eyes

Faint curved scar / Left middle finger

Organization

The Company of Frilled Pollution

Emotions

Sympathy

Personality

Bravely Thundering

Motive

Make a lot of money to cause catastrophe

Bodyguard

Harold the "Sovereign Unicorn"

Physical Size

Diminutive

Story

Additional Locations

The Little Crypt

Overpopulated Sanctuary

Demise House

Random Events

Hoard meets disaster

Pine Branch Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

VAT of Broth Finds gold in the water

Spectator Attempts to rob a bank

World

Stores

Jacob's Wardrobe Couture

Rodriguez's Notebook Threads

Contreras's Bell International

Fowler's Chaise Beauty Stop

Traps

Compacting Room

Phantasmal Killer of Perspiration

Objects

Wardrobe children's replica

Bell with a False bottom

Secret Notebook

Hidden Pen

Gauntlet of Perspiration

Wand of Wonder

If caster is wearing a magic ring, he wants to swallow it

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Brianna Rodriguez "Red Heels" Merchant Chickens Death
Kaleb Contreras "King Heels" Mole Paperclips Physics
Hunter Norman Meteorologist Lions Limes
Jacob Alvarez Shadow Cooking Water
Daniela Fowler Butcher Video Games Bread

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).