The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Crooked Heroin

#0b8693

Location

Foggy, Icy The Gambia

Time of Day

0:16

Extraction Point

118 Miles SW

Time to Complete

37 Hours

Detectives,
We need your help. Agent Easton Day has gone missing and we believe "Junior Hobgoblin" is responsible. They were last seen in The Gambia at 21:08. The agent sent one final message – "Tracks of wolves can be seen at the Skull shaped island". Take this Delicate Paint - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Robin Duran

Alias

"Junior Hobgoblin"

Features

6' 10"

Amber eyes

Small mole / Left eye

Organization

The Authority of Shrill Tattoo

Emotions

Eager

Personality

Unaccountably Brave

Motive

Take over a country to lust for power

Bodyguard

Billy the "Weak Hobgoblin"

Physical Size

Insignificant

Story

Additional Locations

The Crooked Castle

Polluted Suburbs

Pleasure Pond

Random Events

Wedding Cake Attempts to rob a bank

Chauvinist chase a suspect

Chicken Gets their hand chopped off

Woman emerges

World

Stores

Harrison's Bookcase Ventures

Fernandez's Statuette Unlimited

Moss's Large book Bureau

Day's Sculpture Cosmetics

Traps

Ceiling Pendulum

Floor Net of Sanitation

Objects

Bookcase that has been hollowed out

Large book made of heavy metal

Secret Statuette

Hidden Cat

Book of Sanitation

Wand of Wonder

When caster next enters a town, its population doubles

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Michelle Fernandez "All Bones" Merchant Rubber Stamps Paper
Charlotte Moss "Cramped Dumplings" Mole Trucks Hammers
Hailey Fox Architect Books Hammers
Harrison Ayala Dead Tired Pillows Shirts
Easton Day Waiter Paperclips Stickers

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).