The Director Welcomes You

The Lazily Old-Fashioned Agent

#ccc1d8

Location

Bright, Calm South Africa

Time of Day

12:11

Extraction Point

129 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

3 Hours

Shadows,
I have sent you to the top of a Underwater Reef to look for a suspect by the name "Golden Elephants". This mission is counterintelligence. 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 – "A traveling merchant appears at the old bridge".

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

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Margaret Adams

Alias

"Golden Elephants"

Features

7' 9"

Gray eyes

Large deep scar / Left eye

Organization

The Brotherhood of Encrusted Battery

Emotions

Confused

Personality

Lazily Swift

Motive

Make a lot of money to lust for power

Bodyguard

Nicky the "Vast Imp"

Physical Size

Limited

Story

Additional Locations

The Old-Fashioned Business

Compact Chateau

Obsession Maze

Random Events

Turtle Is being kidnapped

Procession Salutes the adventurers

Bard Is being detained

Gunshot grabs a lady's purse

World

Stores

Dawson's crutch Technologies

Vazquez's Tea Set Mall

Francis's Paperweight Worldwide

Newman's Fruit Bowl International

Traps

Arrow

Earthquake of Redemption

Objects

crutch that is glowing

Paperweight that has been hollowed out

Secret Tea Set

Hidden Chastity Belt

Blades of Redemption

Wand of Wonder

Target must Save or forfeit ownership of all of his possessions

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Alan Vazquez "One Ankles" Merchant Drinking Bracelets
Victor Francis "Green Feet" Mole Contracts Pillows
Faith Robles Professional Cuddler Chickens Chickens
Dawson Flynn Intoxicated Photography Soccer
Amir Newman Broker Rubber Bands Scarves

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).