The Director Welcomes You

Judge, Rub, Babies, Spy.

#da1d4c

Location

Calm, Gorgeous Malta

Time of Day

4:8

Extraction Point

105 Miles NEE

Time to Complete

12 Hours

Investigators,
We need your help. Agent Piper Brooks has gone missing and we believe "Fat Dolphin" is responsible. They were last seen in Malta at 06:06. The agent sent one final message – "The group finds a random cow at the Snowy garrison". Take this Delicate Audio Cassette - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Mila Owens

Alias

"Fat Dolphin"

Features

6' 2"

Hazel eyes

Large deep scar / Neck

Organization

The Association of Late Babies

Emotions

Panicked

Personality

Jaggedly Feckless

Motive

Disrupt the military to control the Children

Bodyguard

Randy the "Mysterious Humanoid"

Physical Size

Sizable

Story

Additional Locations

The Edgy Festival

Ancient Island

Fragility Carnival

Random Events

Midwife Balances on a ledge

Squirrel approaches

Panhandler Attempts to rob a bank

Potato emerges

World

Stores

Liliana's Mural Productions

Kelly's Fruit Bowl Couture

Robinson's Portrait Cosmetics

Brooks's Fire poker set Little shop

Traps

Falling Block

Phantasmal Killer of Laughter

Objects

Mural with a False bottom

Portrait with a False bottom

Secret Fruit Bowl

Hidden Bottle

Dagger of Laughter

Wand of Wonder

Summoned creatures ignore the target unless he has a weapon drawn

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Bentley Kelly "Chunky Bones" Merchant Horses Octopus
Elijah Robinson "Obese Scars" Mole Socks Harmonica
Logan Page Dietitian Music Peanut Butter
Liliana Mueller Elder Jazz Bracelets
Piper Brooks Exhilarated Soap Trucks

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).