The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Huge Tattoo

#ce01c8

Location

Rainy, Balmy Turkey

Time of Day

24:33

Extraction Point

92 Miles E

Time to Complete

44 Hours

Agents,
It seems "Quiet Nymph" has gone level 7. They have been broadcasting this message "A black cat runs past at the Eye of Heaven". We need you to eliminate them, Gracefully. Their last known location was recorded at 11:11. You have a Light Bikini as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Alex Berry

Alias

"Quiet Nymph"

Features

5' 1"

Green eyes

Stretch Marks / Left middle finger

Organization

The Task Force of Stale Handle

Emotions

Humiliated

Personality

Gracefully Purring

Motive

Make a lot of money justice for a wrong-doing

Bodyguard

Philip the "Proud Hedgehogs"

Physical Size

Miniature

Story

Additional Locations

The Huge Crypt

Expensive Villa

Rage Masquerade

Random Events

Diary Is under a curse

Crow Balances on a ledge

Hoard Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

Prostitute Is being kidnapped

World

Stores

Eloise's Candlesticks International

Ortiz's Large book Group

Mann's Metal chair Closet

Bishop's Bureau Cosmetics

Traps

Phantasmal Killer

Ceiling Pendulum of Sanitation

Objects

Candlesticks made of heavy metal

Metal chair children's replica

Secret Large book

Hidden Spoon

Sticks of Sanitation

Wand of Wonder

Caster finds a list of assassination targets; his name is next

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Alaina Ortiz "Orange Fingers" Merchant Death Toilets
Carter Mann "Wild Churros" Mole Photography Dinosaurs
Jayden Thornton Teacher Flashlights Comic Books
Eloise Foster Operator Syrup Hammers
Parker Bishop Paramedic Cartography Paperclips

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).