The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Alive Burn

#487223

Location

Miserable, Cloudless Botswana

Time of Day

24:44

Extraction Point

112 Miles N

Time to Complete

9 Hours

Scrutinizers,
I have sent you to within earshot of a Compact Spring to look for a suspect by the name "Short Gnome". This mission is intelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to stop the outbreak. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The group finds a dead fish at the Sacrificial Hole".

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

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Sebastian Duncan

Alias

"Short Gnome"

Features

6' 6"

Brown eyes

Stretch Marks / Left thumb

Organization

The Board of Delicious Error

Emotions

Cheerful

Personality

Truly Obtuse

Motive

Make a lot of money to cause catastrophe

Bodyguard

Donald the "Sinful Serpent"

Physical Size

Fat

Story

Additional Locations

The Alive Crypt

Crowded Castle

Expiration Shelter

Random Events

Whore Becomes wounded

Rustler arrives in the mail

Jug of Peanut Butter Adopts a nearby child

Carcass Calls menacingly

World

Stores

Elijah's Bed Productions

Walton's Fruit Bowl Bazaar

Schneider's Ring Bureau

Becker's Hose Cosmetics

Traps

Extended Bane

Poisoned Arrow of Obsession

Objects

Bed that has been hollowed out

Ring made of heavy metal

Secret Fruit Bowl

Hidden Crossbow

Brass Knuckles of Obsession

Wand of Wonder

Target’s hair grows 1d12 inches each time he’s struck by magic

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Genevieve Walton "Plump Falafels" Merchant Tea Notes
Jacob Schneider "Mini Cappuccinos" Mole Writers Gym Memberships
Connor Guerrero Professional Bridesmaid Soccer Flashlights
Elijah Wilson Electrician Harmonica Limes
Alexandra Becker Barber Paper Tigers

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).