The Director Welcomes You

The Purse Happiness Protocol

#bb3235

Location

Gorgeous, Rainy Samoa

Time of Day

11:27

Extraction Point

184 Miles SW

Time to Complete

5 Hours

Undercover Emissaries,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Metal chair that has been hollowed out. Get to Samoa at 04:22

Good Luck.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Alaina Vaughn

Alias

"Drowsy starfish"

Features

5' 8"

Heterochromia eyes

A second belly button / Left thumb

Organization

The Committee of Worried Vein

Emotions

Self-conscious

Personality

Reluctantly Orange

Motive

Take over a government to lust for power

Bodyguard

Alex the "Fried Eel"

Physical Size

Teeny

Story

Additional Locations

The Hungry Tower

Hidden Business

Passion Crypt

Random Events

Midwife Bounces oddly

Odor screams at the top of their lungs

Princess stop the party and asks questions

Leopard Finds gold in the water

World

Stores

Tricia's Metal chair Du jour

Lucas's Metal chair Outlet

Berry's Statuette Unlimited

Singh's Vanity Worldwide

Traps

Razor-Wire across Hallway

Scything Blade of Happiness

Objects

Metal chair that has been hollowed out

Statuette that is glowing

Secret Metal chair

Hidden Credit Card

Arrows of Happiness

Wand of Wonder

Target has a doppelganger slave that looks just like the caster

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Robin Lucas "Green Heels" Merchant Whipped Cream Slippers
Fiona Berry "Dull Heels" Mole Mirrors Slippers
Brooke Peters Waiter Rabbits Easter
Tricia Yang Musician Glass Sponges
Ava Singh Actor Paperclips Bracelets

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).