The Director Welcomes You

Luge, Prince, Oven, Spy.

#1753ec

Location

Dry, Foggy Saudi Arabia

Time of Day

20:43

Extraction Point

124 Miles NW

Time to Complete

41 Hours

Agents,
We need your help. Agent Marcus Becker has gone missing and we believe "Nice Elephants" is responsible. They were last seen in Saudi Arabia at 17:11. The agent sent one final message – "A vagrant asks for food at the Flooded Crystal". Take this Beautiful Belt - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Chase Nunez

Alias

"Nice Elephants"

Features

6' 8"

Gray eyes

Faint curved scar / Left middle finger

Organization

The company of Tiny Oven

Emotions

Disillusioned

Personality

Quicker Drab

Motive

Take over a government for honor

Bodyguard

Frankie the "Unsightly Hyena"

Physical Size

Petty

Story

Additional Locations

The Itchy Reef

Polluted Sanctuary

Euphoria Lake

Random Events

Crying Child explodes

Crying Child Is being detained

Wedding Cake Evades the law

Feminist Integrates silently into the group

World

Stores

Lincoln's Stairwell Bureau

Adkins's Crate Market

Hart's Trunk Solutions

Becker's Rug International

Traps

Box of Brown Mold

Incendiary Cloud of Extermination

Objects

Stairwell that is glowing

Trunk made of heavy metal

Secret Crate

Hidden Arrows

Sling of Extermination

Wand of Wonder

Target has prominent mandibles like an ant

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Jasmine Adkins "Green Matzo Balls" Merchant Houses Water
Adam Hart "Five Arms" Mole Dice Lions
Brandon Lucas Farmer Fire Acorns
Lincoln Blair Animator Rabbits Soap
Marcus Becker Librarian Octopus Soup

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).