The Director Welcomes You

The Swiftly Vacant Agent

#64104e

Location

Dark, Miserable Congo, Republic of the

Time of Day

11:39

Extraction Point

67 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

15 Hours

Snoopers,
I have sent you to within earshot of a Crowded Labratory to look for a suspect by the name "Four Minotaur". This mission is intelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to stop the outbreak. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "An out of place door appears at the Snowy garrison".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Clandestine Tissues in your kit to help.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Ivy Terry

Alias

"Four Minotaur"

Features

6' 8"

Gray eyes

A second belly button / Right thumb

Organization

The Sisterhood of Chilly War

Emotions

Isolated

Personality

Swiftly Small

Motive

Take over a country to please their master

Bodyguard

Juan the "Glamorous Hydra"

Physical Size

Small-scale

Story

Additional Locations

The Vacant Festival

Bustling Forge

Pleasure Port

Random Events

Gang is loose

Bag of Lemons Adopts a nearby child

Herd of Chicken meets disaster

Pickpocket chase a suspect

World

Stores

Brody's Watch Mall

Sullivan's Trophy Threads

Fields's Creeping Vines Arcade

Peters's Spice shelf Du jour

Traps

Poison Wall Spikes

Water-Filled Room of Laughter

Objects

Watch that has been hollowed out

Creeping Vines children's replica

Secret Trophy

Hidden Knife

Diary of Laughter

Wand of Wonder

Target is suddenly wearing an anachronistic bathing costume

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Declan Sullivan "Green Pinky's" Merchant Soda Deodorant
Lillian Fields "Casual Scars" Mole Painting Oranges
Elise Cunningham Consultant Limes Butterflies
Brody Pope Scientist Football Tigers
Caroline Peters Human Statue Sun Glasses Peanut Butter

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).