The Director Welcomes You

The Avian Snake Situation

#ba931b

Location

Balmy, Hot Antigua and Barbuda

Time of Day

2:35

Extraction Point

110 Miles NW

Time to Complete

26 Hours

Agents,
It seems "King Roc" has gone level 7. They have been broadcasting this message "A white horse dashes past at the Grove of Weeping Willows". We need you to eliminate them, Nervously. Their last known location was recorded at 16:03. You have a Colorful Quilt as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Eliana Vasquez

Alias

"King Roc"

Features

4' 10"

Gray eyes

Stretch Marks / Right eye

Organization

The Unit of Great Activity

Emotions

Confused

Personality

Nervously Cocky

Motive

Make a lot of money to lead a mutiny

Bodyguard

Jimmy the "Fierce Fairy"

Physical Size

Gigantic

Story

Additional Locations

The Avian Lodge

Overpopulated Manor

Extermination Sanctuary

Random Events

Cookie Lunges at the group

Buccaneer grabs a lady's purse

Hoard Lunges at the group

Butter Shipment Is throwing a protest

World

Stores

Cole's Easel Emporium

Coleman's Bureau Threads

Hogan's Vanity Worldwide

Carpenter's Crate Cosmetics

Traps

Camouflaged Pit

Collapsing Column of Sanitation

Objects

Easel that has been hollowed out

Vanity that has been hollowed out

Secret Bureau

Hidden Blowgun

Scimitar of Sanitation

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s left arm stretches to 2X the length of his body

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
King Coleman "Yellow Noses" Merchant Cats Clocks
Autumn Hogan "Casual Hands" Mole Acorns Lipstick
Valentina Griffin Envious Painting Shirts
Cole Ortiz Frazzled Houses Dice
Graham Carpenter Drunken Sharks Soda

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).