The Director Welcomes You

The Boorish Battle Quest

#693d72

Location

Bright, Dull Angola

Time of Day

9:6

Extraction Point

190 Miles SW

Time to Complete

8 Hours

Investigators,
I have sent you to the inside of a Deserted City to look for a suspect by the name "Sharp gorgon". This mission is intelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to slow them down. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A black cat runs past at the Big Momma".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Glowing Tape Measure in your kit to help.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Isaac Aguilar

Alias

"Sharp gorgon"

Features

6' 2"

Green eyes

Small mole / Right thumb

Organization

The Company of Shitty Substance

Emotions

Humiliated

Personality

Keenly Unsightly

Motive

Take over a country to lead a mutiny

Bodyguard

Carl the "Raw Chimera"

Physical Size

Bantam

Story

Additional Locations

The Boorish Acropolis

Compact Island

Rage Port

Random Events

Gypsy explodes

Transport Is throwing a BBQ

Horse Carriage skins a cat with his teeth

Deadbeat Glistens gently

World

Stores

Braxton's Stamp Set Couture

Wells's Flowers Growing Chic Chåteau

Powell's Ceramic Crock Little shop

Curry's Trophy Logistics

Traps

Bear Trap

Box of Brown Mold of Downfall

Objects

Stamp Set made of heavy metal

Ceramic Crock made of heavy metal

Secret Flowers Growing

Hidden Newspaper

Brass Knuckles of Downfall

Wand of Wonder

No one within 50 yards can use rope or the like for 2d4 days

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Ethan Wells "Bullet Scars" Merchant Books Doors
Cameron Powell "Five Bones" Mole Sticks Water
Finley Perkins Elder Whipped Cream Octopus
Braxton Rhodes Physician Essential Oils Chickens
Isabella Curry Tailor Doors Sponges

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).