The Director Welcomes You

The Balloon Grave Consequences Protocol

#a89860

Location

Stormy, Cloudy Chile

Time of Day

12:15

Extraction Point

123 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

15 Hours

Detectives,
I have sent you to be locked inside of a Deserted Nuclear Power Plant to look for a suspect by the name "Meaty Pegasus". This mission is black bag. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to rescue our field agent. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A vagrant asks for money at the Seven Dead".

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

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Nova Tucker

Alias

"Meaty Pegasus"

Features

4' 8"

Blue eyes

Faint curved scar / Left thumb

Organization

The Union of Aggressive Prince

Emotions

Dreading

Personality

Yearningly Cool

Motive

Disrupt the military for revenge

Bodyguard

Jack the "Creepy Mermaid"

Physical Size

Limited

Story

Additional Locations

The Faithful Manor

Expensive Isle

Catastrophe Island

Random Events

Dead Animal chase a suspect

Hoard skins a cat with his teeth

Bank Is getting confiscated

Crazy Man Evades the law

World

Stores

Anna's Spare brick Supermarket

Watts's Glass Jars Wardrobe

Osborne's Shirt Bazaar

Alvarez's Clamp Beauty Stop

Traps

Ghoul Touch

Symbol of Hypnosis of Grave Consequences

Objects

Spare brick that is glowing

Shirt that has been hollowed out

Secret Glass Jars

Hidden Key

Goblet of Grave Consequences

Wand of Wonder

When caster next uses magic, his nearest ally falls unconscious

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
James Watts "Fast Thumbs" Merchant Lions Chickens
Olivia Osborne "Green Boy" Mole Sticks Chalk
Stella Baker Psychiatrist Comic Books Christmas
Anna Molina Chef Houses Squirrels
Sherri Alvarez Chief Executive Officer Sticky Notes Slippers

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).