The Director Welcomes You

The Properly Chilly Agent

#b90366

Location

Rainy, Miserable Djibouti

Time of Day

7:31

Extraction Point

93 Miles SWW

Time to Complete

35 Hours

Shadows,
We need your help. Agent Mateo Salazar has gone missing and we believe "Yellow Platypuses" is responsible. They were last seen in Djibouti at 06:12. The agent sent one final message – "Clouds develop quickly at the Beast's Maze". Take this Heavy Brush - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Rose Lyons

Alias

"Yellow Platypuses"

Features

5' 7"

Amber eyes

Faint curved scar / Right eye

Organization

The Division of Gentle Tree

Emotions

Disgusted

Personality

Properly Slimy

Motive

Take over a country to lead a mutiny

Bodyguard

Emily the "Invisible gorgon"

Physical Size

Sizable

Story

Additional Locations

The Chilly Citadel

Abandoned Maze

Censorship Park

Random Events

Procession Is being kidnapped

Spice Box overflows

Transport Is throwing a protest

Lactose Intolerance Spontaneously disintegrates

World

Stores

Ariana's Fire poker set Convenience store

Christensen's Toolbox Warehouse

Chen's Plaster Bust Ventures

Salazar's Trunk Outlet

Traps

Ghoul Touch

Acid Arrow of Exuberance

Objects

Fire poker set with a False bottom

Plaster Bust children's replica

Secret Toolbox

Hidden Frying Pan

Handcuffs of Exuberance

Wand of Wonder

Caster is immune to non-magical charm-based effects

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Anthony Christensen "No Falafels" Merchant Flashlights Photography
Alice Chen "Fast Hands" Mole Stickers Dolphins
Kennedy Daniel Dead Tired Soccer Balloons
Ariana Potter Athlete Robots Basketball
Mateo Salazar Operator Football Candy

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).