The Director Welcomes You

The Insurance Skill Protocol

#26aa79

Location

Hot, Icy Uganda

Time of Day

11:27

Extraction Point

24 Miles NW

Time to Complete

19 Hours

Silent Negotiators,
I have sent you to climb a Hidden Circus to look for a suspect by the name "Red Elephants". This mission is black ops. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to deactivate their resources. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A vagrant asks for money at the Three Fingers".

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

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Stella Bell

Alias

"Red Elephants"

Features

7' 10"

Amber eyes

Large moles / Left hand

Organization

The Sorority of Fluffy Craigslist

Emotions

Disgraced

Personality

Gently Sticky

Motive

Make a lot of money to save humanity

Bodyguard

Jerry the "Worn Humanoid"

Physical Size

Modest

Story

Additional Locations

The Curved Business

Expensive House

Vulnerability Castle

Random Events

VAT of Broth is being loudly arrested

Dracula overflows

Gallon of Trash Is under a curse

Water Vessel Salutes the adventurers

World

Stores

Presley's Crate Outlet

Fletcher's Tea Pot Closet

Roberts's Coat Collective

Bates's Ceramic Crock Collective

Traps

Tripping Chain

Compacting Room of Skill

Objects

Crate that is glowing

Coat that has been hollowed out

Secret Tea Pot

Hidden Credit Card

Whip of Skill

Wand of Wonder

Target can no longer conceal his plans for world domination

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Elias Fletcher "Mini Dumplings" Merchant Chickens Paper
Jayce Roberts "Heavy Hands" Mole Candy Books
Abel Gibbs Human Statue Doors Chickens
Presley Deleon Bruised Chili Cookies
Andrea Bates Old Timer Rubber Bands Lipstick

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).