The Director Welcomes You

The Broken Data Plight

#84f723

Location

Icy, Arid Armenia

Time of Day

7:22

Extraction Point

118 Miles E

Time to Complete

46 Hours

Shadows,
I have sent you to approach a Pitch Black Shelter to look for a suspect by the name "Black Serpent". This mission is black ops. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to slow them down. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A pool of blood at the Tempest".

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

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Carter Parker

Alias

"Black Serpent"

Features

6' 10"

Green eyes

Faint curved scar / Left arm

Organization

The Union of Tinkling Week

Emotions

Outraged

Personality

Successfully Gregorian

Motive

Take over a country for revenge

Bodyguard

Frankie the "Vacant Hobgoblin"

Physical Size

Insignificant

Story

Additional Locations

The Broken City

Touristy Circus

Cheer Tower

Random Events

Spectator chase a suspect

Vegetable is loose

Carcass strikes the ground

Donkey arrives in the mail

World

Stores

Patrick's Tea Set Technologies

Terry's Grandfather Clock Specialities

Grant's Metal chair Specialities

Kim's Statue Atelier

Traps

Poison Dart

Beehive of Skill

Objects

Tea Set made of heavy metal

Metal chair with a False bottom

Secret Grandfather Clock

Hidden Stave

Blowgun of Skill

Wand of Wonder

Caster thinks that all fire is an illusion

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Santiago Terry "Wild Thumbs" Merchant Soccer Dice
Cole Grant "Black Boy" Mole Contracts Cousins
Jonah Boyd Vision Tea Stickers
Patrick Harrington Stressed Cooking Socks
Angel Kim Veterinarian Trucks Tissues

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).