The Director Welcomes You

Belief, Bust, Crib, Spy.

#f1b472

Location

Bright, Dry Zimbabwe

Time of Day

19:51

Extraction Point

139 Miles SWW

Time to Complete

21 Hours

Examiners,
It seems "Gross Kangaroos" has gone level 2. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a random cow at the Old battlefield". We need you to eliminate them, Diligently. Their last known location was recorded at 15:04. You have a Mechanical Bandana as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Ashton Espinoza

Alias

"Gross Kangaroos"

Features

5' 3"

Heterochromia eyes

Large deep scar / Left foot

Organization

The Union of Clever Crib

Emotions

Ambivalent

Personality

Diligently Ripe

Motive

Disrupt the military for revenge

Bodyguard

Harold the "Bruised Whale"

Physical Size

Diminutive

Story

Additional Locations

The Municipal Manor

Touristy Reef

Annihilation Peninsula

Random Events

Corncob is being loudly arrested

Baker Is frozen into a block of ice

Dozen Eggs Is getting confiscated

Vegetable Evades the law

World

Stores

Anastasia's Hat Collective

Weaver's Vase Collective

Wood's Flower in Vase Brothers

Webster's Brass Replica Brothers

Traps

Reverse Gravity

Scything Blade of Euthanasia

Objects

Hat that is glowing

Flower in Vase with a False bottom

Secret Vase

Hidden Spikes

Blades of Euthanasia

Wand of Wonder

Caster has scars as if his skeleton had been torn out of his body

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Lillian Weaver "Drowsy Matzo Balls" Merchant Cooking Jazz
Hunter Wood "Indigo Spleens" Mole Soccer Sailboats
Dominic Arnold Farmer Coffee Soup
Anastasia Salazar Old Man Flashlights Rubber Bands
Iris Webster Judge Rubber Bands Soup

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).