The Director Welcomes You

The Weakly Obedient Agent

#474ca3

Location

Arid, Foggy Myanmar

Time of Day

14:47

Extraction Point

82 Miles N

Time to Complete

29 Hours

Sleuths,
We need your help. Agent Max Hayes has gone missing and we believe "Mad all-seeing eye" is responsible. They were last seen in Myanmar at 05:07. The agent sent one final message – "An out of place door appears at the graveyard". Take this Polished Headphones - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Steven Kennedy

Alias

"Mad all-seeing eye"

Features

4' 2"

Red eyes

Large moles / Left hand

Organization

The Association of Intelligent Growth

Emotions

Grief-stricken

Personality

Weakly Defeated

Motive

Take over a government to inspire a rebellion

Bodyguard

Emily the "Obedient Werewolf"

Physical Size

Petite

Story

Additional Locations

The Obedient Spring

Compact Forge

Obsession Acropolis

Random Events

Tramp strikes the ground

Crowd Is frozen into a block of ice

Rustler Finds gold in the water

Hound Bursts loudly

World

Stores

Genesis's Statue Hole

Glover's Bed Outlet

Williams's Watch Boutique

Hayes's Picture Frame Beauty Stop

Traps

Flooded Corridor

Built-to-Collapse Wall of Optimism

Objects

Statue that is glowing

Watch made of heavy metal

Secret Bed

Hidden Bottle

Bottle of Optimism

Wand of Wonder

Caster can speak with small fish, but only while underwater

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Eloise Glover "Silver Hands" Merchant Physics Sharks
Maria Williams "Bullet Noses" Mole Tea Cookies
Khloe Love Athlete Peanut Butter Cooking
Genesis Becker Stressed Bells Basketball
Max Hayes Intoxicated Fire Water

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).