The Director Welcomes You

Who is Hal Bra?

#abb5c0

Location

Foul, Overcast Equatorial Guinea

Time of Day

18:15

Extraction Point

191 Miles SE

Time to Complete

38 Hours

Shadows,
We need your help. Agent Adalynn McCormick has gone missing and we believe "Cheap Pig" is responsible. They were last seen in Equatorial Guinea at 20:08. The agent sent one final message – "The group finds a random cow at the Grove of Weeping Willows". Take this Polished Nuts and Bolts - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Marcus Palmer

Alias

"Cheap Pig"

Features

7' 7"

Blue eyes

Small mole / Right eye

Organization

The Crew of Nutty Lunch

Emotions

Insulted

Personality

Cheerfully Cooling

Motive

Take over a government to lead a mutiny

Bodyguard

Hal the "Victorious Roc"

Physical Size

Young

Story

Additional Locations

The Facetious Citadel

Rundown Fortress

Weakness Port

Random Events

Butter Shipment chase a suspect

Safe Is under a curse

Pack of Wild Dogs Integrates silently into the group

Gang is being loudly arrested

World

Stores

Tyler's Vanity Mall

Santiago's Pipe Convenience store

Lang's Tapestry Market

McCormick's Rug Chic Chåteau

Traps

Insanity Mist Vapor

Flooded Corridor of Obsession

Objects

Vanity made of heavy metal

Tapestry that is glowing

Secret Pipe

Hidden Katana

Whip of Obsession

Wand of Wonder

Target asserts that he’ll die if he crosses moving water

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Catherine Santiago "White Hands" Merchant Limes Rubber Bands
Everly Lang "Red Bones" Mole Drinking Sun Glasses
Isaiah Ortega Physician Football Dinosaurs
Tyler Robbins Cobbler Comic Books Bread
Adalynn McCormick Funeral Director Doves Octopus

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).