The Director Welcomes You

Frame, Fifth, Mother, Spy.

#516041

Location

Humid, Arid Kuwait

Time of Day

7:14

Extraction Point

44 Miles SW

Time to Complete

35 Hours

Examiners,
I have sent you to the bottom of a Pitch Black Crypt to look for a suspect by the name "Fast Kangaroos". This mission is black bag. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to slow them down. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A mysterious key is found on the ground at the Garden of Bears".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Soft Bolt Cutter in your kit to help.

— The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Melanie Kennedy

Alias

"Fast Kangaroos"

Features

7' 4"

Amber eyes

Large moles / Right eye

Organization

The Committee of Mushy Mother

Emotions

Aroused

Personality

Gladly Dank

Motive

Make a lot of money to please their master

Bodyguard

Peter the "Dusty Cat"

Physical Size

Little

Story

Additional Locations

The Evasive Reef

Touristy Festival

Violence Circus

Random Events

Gunshot Is hurled at the adventurers

Bum Is being tortured

Storm Strikes the church bell

Swarm of Bees Is hurled at the adventurers

World

Stores

Bentley's Notebook Solutions

Edwards's Flower in Vase Group

Henry's Quill and Ink Chic Chåteau

Paul's Stamp Set Labs

Traps

Acid Fog

Fire of Fatality

Objects

Notebook that is glowing

Quill and Ink that is glowing

Secret Flower in Vase

Hidden Helmet

File of Fatality

Wand of Wonder

Each day, caster can detach his head for up to one hour

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Everett Edwards "No Lox" Merchant Tea Plushies
Valeria Henry "Bullet Ribs" Mole Sponges Shirts
Payton Silva Frustrated Washing Machines Oranges
Bentley Walker Dietitian Photography Bracelets
August Paul Farmer Christmas 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).