The Director Welcomes You

Who is Tim Throne?

#a7659c

Location

Bright, Overcast Switzerland

Time of Day

3:41

Extraction Point

13 Miles NW

Time to Complete

6 Hours

Agents,
It seems "Small Bear" has gone level 1. They have been broadcasting this message "A black cat runs past at the Dragon's Sea". We need you to eliminate them, Deftly. Their last known location was recorded at 17:17. You have a Fluffy Stapler as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Quinn Christensen

Alias

"Small Bear"

Features

4' 2"

Gray eyes

Large moles / Left thumb

Organization

The Community of Inexpensive Cork

Emotions

Adoration

Personality

Deftly White

Motive

Make a lot of money to cause catastrophe

Bodyguard

Tim the "Stoned giant"

Physical Size

Adult

Story

Additional Locations

The Sweltering Park

Overpopulated House

Cheer Festival

Random Events

Chunk of Beef Is hurled at the adventurers

Store chase a suspect

Bard Is throwing a BBQ

Soup skins a cat with his teeth

World

Stores

Eric's Bible Market

Murray's Tea Pot Hole

Blair's Pocket watch Discount

Buchanan's Cutting board Supermarket

Traps

Ray of Sickness

Flooded Corridor of Destruction

Objects

Bible that has been hollowed out

Pocket watch made of heavy metal

Secret Tea Pot

Hidden Club

Fork of Destruction

Wand of Wonder

Target appears to have been turned inside-out and then restored

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Sebastian Murray "Sharp Dumplings" Merchant Cartography Television
Wesley Blair "King Ribs" Mole Pillows Hammers
Ariana Armstrong Geologist Basketball Paperclips
Eric Campbell Barber Honey Sun Glasses
Mattie Buchanan Chief Executive Officer Peanut Butter Teeth

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).