The Director Welcomes You

Bed, Flame, Sabre, Spy.

#a3346b

Location

Dull, Dull Vatican City

Time of Day

11:45

Extraction Point

162 Miles SE

Time to Complete

46 Hours

Eyeballs,
It seems "Red Roc" has gone level 4. They have been broadcasting this message "A shadow passes at the Where grass will not grow". We need you to eliminate them, Dreamily. Their last known location was recorded at 20:00. You have a Robotic Quilt as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Sherri Austin

Alias

"Red Roc"

Features

6' 6"

Gray eyes

A second belly button / Left eye

Organization

The Community of Refined Sabre

Emotions

Intrigued

Personality

Dreamily Dry

Motive

Take over a government to better Humanity

Bodyguard

Jerry the "Happy Bat"

Physical Size

Considerable

Story

Additional Locations

The Billions Sanctuary

Desolate Jungle

Obsession Villa

Random Events

Prostitute Glistens gently

Jug of Peanut Butter Catches leprosy

Skeleton catches on fire

Spice Box Balances on a ledge

World

Stores

Eva's Shirt Unlimited

Carr's Bench Group

Erickson's Figurine Discount

Martinez's Easel Productions

Traps

Poisoned Arrow

Acid Arrow of Demise

Objects

Shirt that is glowing

Figurine that has been hollowed out

Secret Bench

Hidden Shield

Club of Demise

Wand of Wonder

Target makes a spirited effort to tear off his ears

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Vivian Carr "Junior Muscles" Merchant Bread Trucks
Josephine Erickson "Meaty Pretzels" Mole Oranges Sponges
Lilly Little Meteorologist Lamps Eggs
Eva Burton Art Therapist Sun Glasses Dolphins
Charlotte Martinez Psychiatrist Soup Glass

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).