The Director Welcomes You

The Oatmeal Fragility Protocol

#fe10e0

Location

Chilly, Icy Sudan, South

Time of Day

21:28

Extraction Point

105 Miles NW

Time to Complete

33 Hours

Sleuths,
We need your help. Agent Jacob Spencer has gone missing and we believe "Green Hobgoblin" is responsible. They were last seen in Sudan, South at 06:16. The agent sent one final message – "A roll of thunder at the Seven Dead". Take this Clandestine Bonsai Tree - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Abraham Hampton

Alias

"Green Hobgoblin"

Features

5' 7"

Red eyes

Stretch Marks / Right eye

Organization

The League of Refined Battle

Emotions

Satisfied

Personality

Daily Alive

Motive

Disrupt the military for a love interest

Bodyguard

Charles the "Quick Giraffe"

Physical Size

Diminutive

Story

Additional Locations

The Yummy Lake

Bustling Peninsula

Irritation Port

Random Events

Bunny Skips merrily

Box of Mice Finds gold in the water

Pickpocket Becomes wounded

Hoard Crashes slowly

World

Stores

Jonah's Candlesticks Group

Crawford's Certificate Specialities

Lyons's Basket Industries

Spencer's Music Box Closet

Traps

Symbol of Hypnosis

Arrow of Fragility

Objects

Candlesticks that has been hollowed out

Basket made of heavy metal

Secret Certificate

Hidden Cat

Bracelet of Fragility

Wand of Wonder

Target’s weapon hums audibly during battle

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
John Crawford "Cheap Hot Dogs" Merchant Doves Scarves
Leo Lyons "Silver Lemons" Mole Essential Oils Broccoli
Mariah Sanders Talent agent Broccoli Clocks
Jonah Gill Townsfolk Trees Slippers
Jacob Spencer Journalist Cats 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).