The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Delightful Beggar

#5e8ea4

Location

Cloudless, Humid Laos

Time of Day

0:33

Extraction Point

155 Miles SE

Time to Complete

38 Hours

Scrutinizers,
I have sent you to the top of a Hidden Motel to look for a suspect by the name "Gross kobold". This mission is black ops. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to find where their funding is coming from. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "An out of place door appears at the hive".

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

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Maddox Jensen

Alias

"Gross kobold"

Features

6' 6"

Red eyes

A second belly button / Left leg

Organization

The Society of Lemon Magic

Emotions

Grumpy

Personality

Bitterly Calm

Motive

Make a lot of money out of greed

Bodyguard

Tim the "Revolting Kaiju"

Physical Size

Microscopic

Story

Additional Locations

The Delightful Tower

Abandoned Mansion

Imperfection Forest

Random Events

Thief Bounces oddly

Chunk of Beef explodes

Store meets disaster

Crazy Man runs over an infant

World

Stores

Alan's Metal chair Market

Ward's Coat Arcade

Townsend's Butter Churner Consulting

Sanders's Metal chair Cosmetics

Traps

Razor-Wire across Hallway

Moving Executioner Statue of Dark

Objects

Metal chair with a False bottom

Butter Churner made of heavy metal

Secret Coat

Hidden Targe

Brass Knuckles of Dark

Wand of Wonder

After each spell, small lumps of ice fall from caster’s nostrils

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Genesis Ward "Orange Dumplings" Merchant Candy Candy
Harper Townsend "Nice Tongues" Mole Lions Sailboats
Michael Mullins Scientist Basketball Sticks
Alan Norton Pharmacist Cousins Gym Memberships
Natalie Sanders Police Officer Chalk Sharks

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).