The Director Welcomes You

The Farm Delight Incident

#83d535

Location

Cloudy, Gloomy Sri Lanka

Time of Day

20:29

Extraction Point

163 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

45 Hours

Ambassadors,
We need your help. Agent Ariel Castillo has gone missing and we believe "Blue Whale" is responsible. They were last seen in Sri Lanka at 14:13. The agent sent one final message – "Distant sounds of screaming at the Dragon's Sea". Take this Angry Apron - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Levi Carter

Alias

"Blue Whale"

Features

5' 1"

Green eyes

Stretch Marks / Right hand

Organization

The Council of Great Zephyr

Emotions

Depressed

Personality

Urgently Mannered

Motive

Make a lot of money fueled by conspiracy

Bodyguard

Tiffany the "Brave Whale"

Physical Size

Tall

Story

Additional Locations

The Plain Grove

Abandoned Forest

Freshness Reef

Random Events

Butter Shipment Balances on a ledge

Chanting Cult skins a cat with his teeth

Vegetable Is being tortured

Storm Gets their hand chopped off

World

Stores

Elliot's Ring Properties

Graham's Kitchen knife Ventures

Austin's Bureau Cosmetics

Castillo's Trophy International

Traps

Object Smeared with Poison

Symbol of Hypnosis of Delight

Objects

Ring that has been hollowed out

Bureau children's replica

Secret Kitchen knife

Hidden Polearm

Bangle of Delight

Wand of Wonder

Caster finds a powder that is highly toxic to large-sized insects

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Elizabeth Graham "White Elbows" Merchant Washing Machines Sun Glasses
Landon Austin "Sharp Scars" Mole Video Games Dice
Evan Barber Soul Trucks Tea
Elliot Pearson Railroad Conductor Stickers Money
Ariel Castillo Railroad Conductor Photography Toilets

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).