The Director Welcomes You

Tax, Zipper, Burlesque, Spy.

#173ea9

Location

Windy, Cloudless Germany

Time of Day

6:24

Extraction Point

157 Miles S

Time to Complete

7 Hours

Snoopers,
We need your help. Agent Kevin Woods has gone missing and we believe "Junior Vampires" is responsible. They were last seen in Germany at 00:13. The agent sent one final message – "Distant sounds of screaming at the Top of the carousel wheel". Take this Clean Guitar - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Easton Jackson

Alias

"Junior Vampires"

Features

6' 10"

Gray eyes

Stretch Marks / Right middle finger

Organization

The Department of Grumpy Burlesque

Emotions

Horrified

Personality

Zestfully Tropical

Motive

Take over a government for scientific discovery

Bodyguard

Donald the "Itchy Giraffe"

Physical Size

Baby

Story

Additional Locations

The Fried Fortress

Pitch Black Peninsula

Irritation Maze

Random Events

VAT of Broth Ignites violently

Softball Is being tortured

Biscuit Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

Corncob Is being tortured

World

Stores

Evan's Marionette Du jour

Garza's Letter Opener Market

Reese's End Table Technologies

Woods's Coat Cosmetics

Traps

Large Net

Flame Strike of Violence

Objects

Marionette children's replica

End Table that is glowing

Secret Letter Opener

Hidden Chastity Belt

Fork of Violence

Wand of Wonder

Next fire-based magic used nearby detonates on its caster

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Robert Garza "Three Bones" Merchant Rubber Bands Hamsters
Damian Reese "Three Cheesecakes" Mole Pillows Sailboats
Delilah Carrillo Annoyed Scarves Easter
Evan Alexander Dentist Cartography Rabbits
Kevin Woods Dentist Water Essential Oils

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).