The Director Welcomes You

The Nut Ice Protocol

#3212ac

Location

Miserable, Hot Mongolia

Time of Day

13:50

Extraction Point

56 Miles E

Time to Complete

31 Hours

Silent Negotiators,
I have sent you to the outside of a Expensive Lagoon to look for a suspect by the name "Fat Dragon". This mission is black ops. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to assassinate the target. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The group finds a random cow at the Flooded Crystal".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Invisible Chewing Gum in your kit to help.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Norah Ramsey

Alias

"Fat Dragon"

Features

6' 8"

Green eyes

Stretch Marks / Right arm

Organization

The Society of Tart Mist

Emotions

Melancholy

Personality

Cautiously Tropical

Motive

Make a lot of money to achieve their destiny

Bodyguard

Hal the "Fat Hydra"

Physical Size

Tall

Story

Additional Locations

The Greasy Spring

Hidden Maze

Prosperity Lake

Random Events

Procession strikes the ground

Pickpocket gathers near a point of interest

Nearby Gas Tank chase a suspect

Chauvinist Is under a curse

World

Stores

Tyler's Sink Market

Pham's Bottle Market

Hartman's Stamp Set Hole

Robles's Diary Discount

Traps

Blade Barrier

Dropping Ceiling of Ice

Objects

Sink that has been hollowed out

Stamp Set made of heavy metal

Secret Bottle

Hidden Handcuffs

Fork of Ice

Wand of Wonder

Target’s weapon instills Fear in its wielder during melee

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Penelope Pham "Violet Churros" Merchant Rubber Stamps Rabbits
Jasmine Hartman "Cheap Hearts" Mole Robots Acorns
Delilah Maldonado Envious Sticky Notes Acorns
Tyler Hampton Cranky Cookies Tissues
Isla Robles Angry Rocks Glitter

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).