The Director Welcomes You

Who is Anthony Secretary?

#3ef5d7

Location

Dull, Windy Cameroon

Time of Day

19:6

Extraction Point

153 Miles SSE

Time to Complete

7 Hours

Shadows,
It seems "Casual Hydra" has gone level 4. They have been broadcasting this message "Clouds develop quickly at the Golden Fire". We need you to eliminate them, Tediously. Their last known location was recorded at 00:24. You have a Dull Flute as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Arabella Johnston

Alias

"Casual Hydra"

Features

4' 8"

Blue eyes

A second belly button / Left arm

Organization

The Firm of Judicious Face

Emotions

Fearful

Personality

Tediously Prehensile

Motive

Take over a country justice for a wrong-doing

Bodyguard

Anthony the "Affluent Platypuses"

Physical Size

Full

Story

Additional Locations

The Blue Shelter

Polluted Creek

Euphoria Barn Dance

Random Events

Cauldron scurries by

Thief Attempts to rob a bank

Softball Is throwing a BBQ

Biscuit Adopts a nearby child

World

Stores

Peyton's Easel Worldwide

Mendoza's Desk Outlet

Patel's Tea Pot Boutique

Terry's Notebook Discount

Traps

Ghoul Touch

Camouflaged Pit of Instability

Objects

Easel with a False bottom

Tea Pot children's replica

Secret Desk

Hidden Blades

Scimitar of Instability

Wand of Wonder

Target’s face is tattooed with cryptic runes and sigils

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Michael Mendoza "Plump Matzo Balls" Merchant Cookies Teeth
Elizabeth Patel "All Scars" Mole Cellphones Drinking
Diego Stewart Indifferent Acorns Painting
Peyton Parks Soul Cartography Syrup
Mckenzie Terry Physician Octopus Music

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).