The Director Welcomes You

The Quietly Tragic Agent

#ff7876

Location

Bright, Calm South Africa

Time of Day

19:39

Extraction Point

160 Miles W

Time to Complete

28 Hours

Sleuths,
I have sent you to climb a Underground Park to look for a suspect by the name "Silver Bull". This mission is clandestine. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to disable the bomb. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A lone flower growing at the Three Fingers".

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

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Ximena Fletcher

Alias

"Silver Bull"

Features

7' 10"

Hazel eyes

Small mole / Neck

Organization

The Bunch of Clean Espresso

Emotions

Hesitant

Personality

Quietly Boorish

Motive

Take over a country to become famous

Bodyguard

Timmy the "Old Python"

Physical Size

Short

Story

Additional Locations

The Tragic Acropolis

Touristy Port

Cheer Maze

Random Events

Vagabond runs over an infant

Box of Mice Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

Crazy Man Is accused by the law

Pine Branch arrives in the mail

World

Stores

Nora's Satchel Industries

Gallagher's Mural Boutique

Webster's Bench Discount

Garrett's Lamp Unlimited

Traps

Ceiling Pendulum

Object Smeared with Poison of Sanitation

Objects

Satchel that is glowing

Bench made of heavy metal

Secret Mural

Hidden Helmet

Gauntlet of Sanitation

Wand of Wonder

Caster turns into a clothing store mannequin for 1d6 rounds

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Brielle Gallagher "Little Forearms" Merchant Squirrels Jazz
Natalia Webster "Plump Lungs" Mole Lamps Football
Noah Graham Zestful Christmas Easter
Nora Bowen Librarian Water Painting
Brooklyn Garrett Dog surfing instructor Eggs Dinosaurs

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).