The Director Welcomes You

Trade, Mine, Computer, Spy.

#fd05b2

Location

Gloomy, Windy Iceland

Time of Day

3:32

Extraction Point

182 Miles NEE

Time to Complete

20 Hours

Detectives,
As you can see you are trapped inside circle a Ancient Lake . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Blue Porpoises" is responsible and they sent us this message - "A vagrant asks for money at the Devil's barrow". Your mission was anti-surveillance, achieve what you can.

Hopefully you still have that Clean File hidden on you.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Mya Tucker

Alias

"Blue Porpoises"

Features

7' 9"

Brown eyes

Faint curved scar / Crotch

Organization

The Unit of Purple Computer

Emotions

Disillusioned

Personality

Quizzically Strungout

Motive

Make a lot of money out of greed

Bodyguard

Jack the "Gigantic Gremlin"

Physical Size

Diminutive

Story

Additional Locations

The Famous Barn Dance

Touristy Lodge

Obliteration Crypt

Random Events

Spectator chase a suspect

Bunny Attempts to rob a bank

Diary Ignites violently

Midwife Gets their hand chopped off

World

Stores

Savannah's Potted Plant Hole

Manning's Satchel Atelier

Tyler's Sconce Mall

Hartman's Tapestry Specialities

Traps

Razor-Wire across Hallway

Beehive of Rage

Objects

Potted Plant that has been hollowed out

Sconce that is glowing

Secret Satchel

Hidden Morning Star

Throwing Dart of Rage

Wand of Wonder

Target disgorges an intricate but badly rusted clockwork device

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Hannah Manning "Nice Stomachs" Merchant Rubber Bands Soda
Aubree Tyler "Dull Bones" Mole Sharp Things Lions
Daniel Bailey Lawyer Whipped Cream Paperclips
Savannah Webb Bounty hunter Oranges Shirts
Delilah Hartman Statistician Cousins Broccoli

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).