The Director Welcomes You

The Encrusted Polarbear Mystery

#53848f

Location

Gorgeous, Wet Hungary

Time of Day

3:47

Extraction Point

59 Miles SWW

Time to Complete

39 Hours

Spy Deputies,
We need your help. Agent Isabella Wallace has gone missing and we believe "Green Humanoid" is responsible. They were last seen in Hungary at 09:13. The agent sent one final message – "A mysterious key is found on the ground at the Tempest". Take this Sharp Purse - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Edward Newton

Alias

"Green Humanoid"

Features

5' 6"

Gray eyes

A second belly button / Right middle finger

Organization

The Alliance of Deep Cash

Emotions

Sympathy

Personality

Limply Fugly

Motive

Take over a country for pure destruction

Bodyguard

Juan the "Wooden Hobgoblin"

Physical Size

Elder

Story

Additional Locations

The Encrusted Shelter

Expensive Palace

Prosperity Park

Random Events

Renaissance Faire explodes

Whore Is getting confiscated

Rustler Is throwing a BBQ

Druid Lunges at the group

World

Stores

Gabriella's Urn Factory

Adkins's Creeping Vines Properties

White's Vanity International

Wallace's Coat of Arms Productions

Traps

Extended Bane

Wall Blade of Skill

Objects

Urn made of heavy metal

Vanity that has been hollowed out

Secret Creeping Vines

Hidden Arrows

Boomerang of Skill

Wand of Wonder

One of caster’s eyes bulges like a fish eye

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Chloe Adkins "Gross Hands" Merchant Eggs Sun Glasses
Ella White "Three Heels" Mole Christmas Soap
Ryan Tyler Weakened Tigers Sponges
Gabriella Hardy Journalist Cartography Limes
Isabella Wallace Police Officer Fire Easter

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).