The Director Welcomes You

The Pitiful Snake Dilemma

#25c013

Location

Humid, Chilly Chile

Time of Day

15:45

Extraction Point

115 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

1 Hours

Shadows,
We need your help. Agent Hudson Bennett has gone missing and we believe "The Unicorn" is responsible. They were last seen in Chile at 13:01. The agent sent one final message – "The group finds a dollar on the ground at the Broken Face". Take this Clandestine Bikini - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Claire Marsh

Alias

"The Unicorn"

Features

7' 10"

Green eyes

Faint curved scar / Left arm

Organization

The Board of Happy Mural

Emotions

Uncertain

Personality

Unabashedly Mealy

Motive

Disrupt the military to cause catastrophe

Bodyguard

Darnell the "Loose Platypuses"

Physical Size

Great

Story

Additional Locations

The Pitiful House

Archaic Peninsula

Amnesia Chateau

Random Events

Squirrel Is being tortured

Mutant Is throwing a protest

Crazy Man explodes

Procession Adopts a nearby child

World

Stores

Joseph's Footlocker Outlet

Mejia's Stool Creative

Lawrence's Platter Group

Bennett's Bible Cosmetics

Traps

Phantasmal Killer

Insanity Mist Vapor of Laughter

Objects

Footlocker that has been hollowed out

Platter children's replica

Secret Stool

Hidden Camera

Guthook of Laughter

Wand of Wonder

Target forgets that his allies know who he is

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Evelyn Mejia "Blue Fingers" Merchant Sticks Painting
Cora Lawrence "Drowsy Bones" Mole Paperclips Trees
Lorenzo Hubbard Elder Rabbits Candles
Joseph Martin Geologist Bears Dice
Hudson Bennett Journalist Television Toilets

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).