The Director Welcomes You

The Childish Error Mystery

#a51f67

Location

Cloudy, Rainy Lebanon

Time of Day

5:35

Extraction Point

152 Miles SE

Time to Complete

32 Hours

Silent Negotiators,
As you can see you are trapped inside the bottom of a Crowded Sanctuary . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Little Demon" is responsible and they sent us this message - "A mysterious key is found on the ground at the dry riverbed". Your mission was anti-surveillance, achieve what you can.

Hopefully you still have that Sharp Quilt hidden on you.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Lilly Gill

Alias

"Little Demon"

Features

7' 2"

Brown eyes

A second belly button / Right thumb

Organization

The Board of Risible Poison

Emotions

Joyful

Personality

Punctually Fastidious

Motive

Make a lot of money because of a betrayal

Bodyguard

Jackie the "Jolly Mongoose"

Physical Size

Tremendous

Story

Additional Locations

The Childish Creek

Compact Reef

Oblivion Lagoon

Random Events

Swarm of Bees Calls menacingly

Nearby Gas Tank Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

Gunshot screams at the top of their lungs

Lactose Intolerance Bursts loudly

World

Stores

Rhett's Figurine Cosmetics

Miranda's Trinket Little shop

Miller's Platter Specialities

Stevens's Bicycle Specialities

Traps

Poison Dart

Lightning Bolt of Contentment

Objects

Figurine children's replica

Platter that has been hollowed out

Secret Trinket

Hidden Rock

Wrench of Contentment

Wand of Wonder

Target can detect counterfeit gems by tasting them

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Lucia Miranda "Orange Lox" Merchant Essential Oils Teeth
Addison Miller "Italian Fingers" Mole Baseball Tea
Willow Kennedy Art Therapist Cats Paper
Rhett Anderson Electrician Acorns Boxes
Ava Stevens Broker Water Eggs

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).