The Director Welcomes You

The Software The Blackest Black Incident

#9f2498

Location

Wet, Mild Netherlands

Time of Day

6:40

Extraction Point

168 Miles E

Time to Complete

17 Hours

Meddlers,
As you can see you are trapped inside the inside of a Pitch Black Mansion . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Chunky Manticore" is responsible and they sent us this message - "A roll of thunder at the Underwater cave". Your mission was black bag, achieve what you can.

Hopefully you still have that Feminine Plier hidden on you.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Finley Bishop

Alias

"Chunky Manticore"

Features

4' 1"

Amber eyes

Faint curved scar / Right arm

Organization

The Division of Fierce Splint

Emotions

Guilty

Personality

Safely Oafish

Motive

Disrupt the military justice for a wrong-doing

Bodyguard

Penelope the "Jagged Bear"

Physical Size

Cramped

Story

Additional Locations

The Girthy City

Ancient Barn Dance

Amnesia Isle

Random Events

Panhandler Strikes the church bell

Bum Balances on a ledge

Vegetable emerges

Deadbeat stop the party and asks questions

World

Stores

Eva's Skeletal Animal Beauty Stop

Scott's Ring Worldwide

Hogan's Paperweight Solutions

Byrd's Pipe Closet

Traps

Razor-Wire across Hallway

Bear Trap of The Blackest Black

Objects

Skeletal Animal with a False bottom

Paperweight that is glowing

Secret Ring

Hidden Bottle

Sling of The Blackest Black

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s presence causes timekeeping devices to combust

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Fiona Scott "White Bagels" Merchant Basketball Technology
Faith Hogan "The Boy" Mole Harmonica Jigsaw Puzzles
Callie Stewart Counselor Sun Glasses Broccoli
Eva Fleming Ghost Lipstick Rock n' Roll
Morgan Byrd Teacher Potatoes Cats

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).