The Director Welcomes You

The Teeny Substance Investigation

#9ea637

Location

Breezy, Chilly Jamaica

Time of Day

21:11

Extraction Point

189 Miles NWW

Time to Complete

21 Hours

Undercover Emissaries,
I have sent you to fly above a Hidden Nuclear Power Plant to look for a suspect by the name "Chunky Beast". This mission is anti-surveillance. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to assassinate the target. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The group finds a sword in a stone at the dry riverbed".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Robotic Toothbrush in your kit to help.

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Autumn Chan

Alias

"Chunky Beast"

Features

7' 1"

Red eyes

Large deep scar / Right middle finger

Organization

The Society of Brief Zipper

Emotions

Curious

Personality

Enormously Victorian

Motive

Take over a government for a love interest

Bodyguard

Darnell the "Petite Gargoyle"

Physical Size

Fat

Story

Additional Locations

The Teeny Isle

Rundown Lodge

Fury Arcade

Random Events

Bunny Salutes the adventurers

Potato scurries by

Biscuit is heard screaming

Dozen Eggs Salutes the adventurers

World

Stores

Brianna's Stairwell Solutions

Welch's Fruit Bowl Creative

Todd's Ring Unlimited

Tate's Letter Opener Arcade

Traps

Tripping Chain

Rolling Rock of Freshness

Objects

Stairwell made of heavy metal

Ring children's replica

Secret Fruit Bowl

Hidden Key

Club of Freshness

Wand of Wonder

Tomorrow, caster finds a small pouch full of scorpions

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Gianna Welch "Orange Noses" Merchant Chocolate Tigers
Oliver Todd "Casual Spleens" Mole Gym Memberships Water
Mya Higgins Talent agent Doors Squirrels
Brianna Little Paramedic Bracelets Drinking
Axel Tate Demon Whipped Cream Pillows

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).