The Director Welcomes You

Mural, Galley, Rate, Spy.

#a772de

Location

Foggy, Overcast Afghanistan

Time of Day

15:17

Extraction Point

75 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

31 Hours

Undercover Emissaries,
I have sent you to fly above a Pitch Black Forest to look for a suspect by the name "Silver Python". This mission is clandestine. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to retrieve the stolen intel. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A lone flower growing at the Dead Forest".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Evil Nuts and Bolts in your kit to help.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Ellie Hernandez

Alias

"Silver Python"

Features

7' 11"

Blue eyes

Large deep scar / Left foot

Organization

The Gang of Jocular Rate

Emotions

Humiliated

Personality

Innocently Avian

Motive

Take over a government because they straight up craycray

Bodyguard

Penelope the "Baked Opossums"

Physical Size

Short

Story

Additional Locations

The Drab Sanctuary

Abandoned Forge

Skill Lagoon

Random Events

Bellhop scurries by

Robber drops from the sky

Water Vessel Protests

Drunk Calls menacingly

World

Stores

Samantha's Hanging Birdcage Couture

Chang's Lipstick Bureau

Haynes's Lounge Chair Outlet

Cortez's Tea Set Mall

Traps

Flooded Corridor

Bestow Curse of Dark

Objects

Hanging Birdcage that has been hollowed out

Lounge Chair children's replica

Secret Lipstick

Hidden Blowgun

Lighter of Dark

Wand of Wonder

Target’s skin has the texture of rough bark

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Molly Chang "Junior Lox" Merchant Sharp Things Bears
Parker Haynes "Indigo Bagels" Mole Chalk Chili
Margaret Lowe Artist Mirrors Music
Samantha Salinas Optimistic Chili Drinking
Ariana Cortez Pharmacist Houses 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).