The Director Welcomes You

The Vessel Skill Protocol

#fb1112

Location

Humid, Bright Lebanon

Time of Day

1:52

Extraction Point

97 Miles W

Time to Complete

14 Hours

Informants,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Marionette made of heavy metal. Get to Lebanon at 24:22

Good Luck.

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Messiah Fernandez

Alias

"Tough Platypuses"

Features

7' 9"

Heterochromia eyes

Stretch Marks / Right eye

Organization

The Society of Victorian Mohawk

Emotions

Infatuated

Personality

Vacantly Huge

Motive

Take over a country to lust for power

Bodyguard

Frankie the "Chewy Ogre"

Physical Size

Minuscule

Story

Additional Locations

The Gorgeous Circus

Deserted Mansion

Stealth Carnival

Random Events

Dancer Bounces oddly

Husband Evades the law

Gang Adopts a nearby child

Lactose Intolerance Strikes the church bell

World

Stores

Mason's Marionette Emporium

Reyes's Lounge Chair Solutions

Lynch's Vase Industries

Dominguez's Mounted Animal Couture

Traps

Burning Hands

Bricks from Ceiling of Skill

Objects

Marionette made of heavy metal

Vase that has been hollowed out

Secret Lounge Chair

Hidden Club

Falchion of Skill

Wand of Wonder

After each spell, caster’s heart pounds audibly

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Jesse Reyes "Stiff Ankles" Merchant Tea Video Games
Eli Lynch "Cramped Ankles" Mole Football Dice
Madison Obrien Broker Sticky Notes Bracelets
Mason Hopkins Surveyor Broccoli Tissues
Ashley Dominguez Zestful Eggs Sun Glasses

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).