The Director Welcomes You

Rollercoaster, Law, Nail, Spy.

#d54702

Location

Warm, Windy Somalia

Time of Day

18:7

Extraction Point

42 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

35 Hours

Detectives,
We need your help. Agent Amy Mullins has gone missing and we believe "Meaty Pegasus" is responsible. They were last seen in Somalia at 13:10. The agent sent one final message – "A shadow passes at the Dragon's Sea". Take this Fluffy Belt - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Arabella Walters

Alias

"Meaty Pegasus"

Features

5' 5"

Hazel eyes

A second belly button / Right foot

Organization

The Office of Mammoth Nail

Emotions

Disoriented

Personality

Brightly Little

Motive

Take over a country to lust for power

Bodyguard

Oscar the "Rare Giraffe"

Physical Size

Small-scale

Story

Additional Locations

The Large Isle

Archaic Tower

Destiny Masquerade

Random Events

Corncob Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

Dancer is heard screaming

Princess Glistens gently

Gallon of Trash Is being tortured

World

Stores

Caleb's Creeping Vines Arcade

Maldonado's Bureau Unlimited

Evans's Vanity Specialities

Mullins's Skeletal Animal Convenience store

Traps

Hail of Needles

Floor Net of Sanitation

Objects

Creeping Vines made of heavy metal

Vanity made of heavy metal

Secret Bureau

Hidden Brass Knuckles

Collar of Sanitation

Wand of Wonder

All Dwarves within 10 miles are secretly fond of orcs

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Abel Maldonado "Golden Pinky's" Merchant Broccoli Money
Leilani Evans "Fast Toes" Mole Rabbits Clocks
Edward Alvarado Drunken Fire Deodorant
Caleb Edwards Cranky Glitter Hammers
Amy Mullins Graphic Designer Toilets Teeth

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).