The Director Welcomes You

The Insignia Happiness Incident

#1c2302

Location

Sunny, Chilly Nepal

Time of Day

12:8

Extraction Point

111 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

9 Hours

Informants,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Satchel with a False bottom. Get to Nepal at 13:12

Good Luck.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Sophia Young

Alias

"Meaty Golem"

Features

6' 9"

Hazel eyes

Small mole / Right thumb

Organization

The Unit of Happy Ghost

Emotions

Anxious

Personality

Daily Curious

Motive

Take over a government to achieve their destiny

Bodyguard

George the "Faithful potato"

Physical Size

Minuscule

Story

Additional Locations

The Howling Creek

Expensive Business

Silence Island

Random Events

Fairy scurries by

Chunk of Beef Is hurled at the adventurers

Prostitute Catches leprosy

Prostitute Is accused by the law

World

Stores

Malachi's Satchel International

Fitzgerald's Bottle Couture

Silva's Watch Productions

Ryan's Counter Threads

Traps

Black Tentacles

Ghoul Touch of Happiness

Objects

Satchel with a False bottom

Watch with a False bottom

Secret Bottle

Hidden Necklace

Bracer of Happiness

Wand of Wonder

Target is suddenly sitting in a bucket full of ice water

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Bella Fitzgerald "Fat Scars" Merchant Death Fire
Julia Silva "Two Bones" Mole Trucks Television
Hannah Goodwin Indifferent Quartz Crystals Acorns
Malachi Simmons Plumber Essential Oils Cousins
Andrea Ryan Drunken Shirts Rubber Stamps

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).