The Director Welcomes You

Who is Nick Uranus?

#4ca44d

Location

Foul, Windless Cabo Verde

Time of Day

11:21

Extraction Point

94 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

33 Hours

Examiners,
We need your help. Agent Hazel Mendez has gone missing and we believe "King starfish" is responsible. They were last seen in Cabo Verde at 14:05. The agent sent one final message – "A black cat runs past at the Snowy garrison". Take this Rusty Sun Lotion - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Morris Walters

Alias

"King starfish"

Features

6' 1"

Heterochromia eyes

Small mole / Right foot

Organization

The Commission of Scaley Spa

Emotions

Frustrated

Personality

Eventually Tight

Motive

Take over a country out of jealousy

Bodyguard

Nick the "Diligent Hydra"

Physical Size

Big

Story

Additional Locations

The Portly Spring

Compact Mansion

Joy Pond

Random Events

Butter Shipment runs over an infant

Baker strikes the ground

Crying Child gathers near a point of interest

Bear gathers near a point of interest

World

Stores

Elena's Musical instrument Factory

Porter's Fruit Bowl Specialities

Gordon's Mirror Solutions

Mendez's Cabinet Arcade

Traps

Acid Fog

Burning Hands of Censorship

Objects

Musical instrument made of heavy metal

Mirror children's replica

Secret Fruit Bowl

Hidden Morning Star

Spikes of Censorship

Wand of Wonder

Someone nearby must Save vs Death or air becomes poisonous to him

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Samantha Porter "Plump Dumplings" Merchant Water Shirts
Messiah Gordon "Right Hearts" Mole Paperclips Soup
Beau Evans Physician Gym Memberships Balloons
Elena Harvey Veteran Cooking Candles
Hazel Mendez Graphic Designer Candy Plushies

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).