The Director Welcomes You

The Moist Knife Pursuit

#36ae64

Location

Hot, Dry Cabo Verde

Time of Day

11:52

Extraction Point

67 Miles SW

Time to Complete

26 Hours

Operatives,
We need your help. Agent Alexa Miles has gone missing and we believe "Casual Owlman" is responsible. They were last seen in Cabo Verde at 23:11. The agent sent one final message – "Clouds develop quickly at the graveyard". Take this Evil Bolt Cutter - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Elena Holmes

Alias

"Casual Owlman"

Features

7' 1"

Brown eyes

Small mole / Left thumb

Organization

The Office of Jolly Dirigible

Emotions

Isolated

Personality

Woefully Endemic

Motive

Disrupt the military out of desperation

Bodyguard

Harrison the "Bewildered Opossums"

Physical Size

Petite

Story

Additional Locations

The Moist Reef

Compact Fortress

Delirium House

Random Events

Ninja Bursts loudly

Spice Box strikes the ground

Rhapsody Skips merrily

Cookie Is under a curse

World

Stores

Jordyn's Easel Little shop

Newman's Pedestal Chic Chåteau

Hanson's Cutting board Technologies

Miles's Mirror Threads

Traps

Wall Blade

Javelin of Competency

Objects

Easel that has been hollowed out

Cutting board made of heavy metal

Secret Pedestal

Hidden Rapier

Dagger of Competency

Wand of Wonder

When caster next casts this spell, he’s paralyzed until sunset

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Piper Newman "Mad Arms" Merchant Cookies Socks
Eloise Hanson "Heavy Eyes" Mole Books Sharks
Luna Arnold Acupuncturist Doors Butterflies
Jordyn Dean Electrician Sun Glasses Cooking
Alexa Miles Angry Honey Dice

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).