The Director Welcomes You

Who is Daniel Media?

#a06542

Location

Gloomy, Stormy Sudan, South

Time of Day

19:39

Extraction Point

150 Miles NE

Time to Complete

34 Hours

Investigators,
We need your help. Agent Teagan Cooper has gone missing and we believe "The Kaiju" is responsible. They were last seen in Sudan, South at 00:08. The agent sent one final message – "The group finds a dead fish at the Boneyard". Take this Dull Barstool - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Landon Vazquez

Alias

"The Kaiju"

Features

5' 4"

Amber eyes

Large moles / Crotch

Organization

The Division of Millions Debt

Emotions

Relieved

Personality

Unexpectedly Good

Motive

Make a lot of money for pure destruction

Bodyguard

Daniel the "Common Kangaroos"

Physical Size

Enormous

Story

Additional Locations

The Ashy Barn Dance

Underwater Forest

Calamity Crypt

Random Events

Box of Cigarette Calls menacingly

Transport Is being kidnapped

Beggar grabs a lady's purse

Delivery Guy Balances on a ledge

World

Stores

Hadley's Candelabra Group

Woods's Window Collective

Gregory's Bookcase Closet

Cooper's Cabinet Factory

Traps

Box of Brown Mold

Water-Filled Room of Fate

Objects

Candelabra children's replica

Bookcase that is glowing

Secret Window

Hidden Pike

Javelins of Fate

Wand of Wonder

Next person to wound the target is thrown into the nearest well

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Candace Woods "Four Fingers" Merchant Oranges Horses
Camden Gregory "Casual Tongues" Mole Soda Death
Karter Austin Weakened Rocks Toilets
Hadley Snyder Scientist Contracts Cousins
Teagan Cooper Animator Soup Chili

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).