The Director Welcomes You

Love, Zipper, Yam, Spy.

#6714a5

Location

Dry, Arid Chad

Time of Day

13:12

Extraction Point

92 Miles SSE

Time to Complete

43 Hours

Investigators,
As you can see you are trapped inside the top of a Compact Labratory . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Meaty Dwarf" is responsible and they sent us this message - "Clouds develop quickly at the Music Store". Your mission was anti-surveillance, achieve what you can.

Hopefully you still have that Clean Ashtray hidden on you.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Kimberly Castillo

Alias

"Meaty Dwarf"

Features

6' 5"

Heterochromia eyes

Faint curved scar / Left foot

Organization

The Company of Teeny Yam

Emotions

Scared

Personality

Readily Victorious

Motive

Take over a country out of survival

Bodyguard

Hal the "Comical Beast"

Physical Size

Modest

Story

Additional Locations

The Handsome Circus

Bustling Masquerade

Contentment Crypt

Random Events

Bag of Lemons Is throwing a BBQ

Storm Bounces oddly

Vagrant is robbed

Druid Integrates silently into the group

World

Stores

Bryson's Doorway Specialities

Pratt's Cutting board Supermarket

Black's Bed Atelier

Valdez's Potted Plant Boutique

Traps

Poison Needle

Fusillade of Darts of Enjoyment

Objects

Doorway with a False bottom

Bed that is glowing

Secret Cutting board

Hidden Spoon

Staff of Enjoyment

Wand of Wonder

Any clothing or armor now worn by target is soaked with tree sap

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
William Pratt "Small Thumbs" Merchant Honey Singing
Connor Black "Italian Pinky's" Mole Sticks Trucks
Anna Gutierrez Veterinarian Easter Sticks
Bryson Mills Dietitian Music Water
Jayden Valdez Acupuncturist Writers Batteries

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).