The Director Welcomes You

The Uselessly Microscopic Agent

#fcbc48

Location

Gloomy, Arid Mali

Time of Day

20:14

Extraction Point

166 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

5 Hours

Examiners,
We need your help. Agent Adalyn Morgan has gone missing and we believe "Plump Mutants" is responsible. They were last seen in Mali at 11:05. The agent sent one final message – "The earth shakes briefly at the Screaming Waterfall". Take this Rusty Blouse - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Everett Clark

Alias

"Plump Mutants"

Features

4' 11"

Heterochromia eyes

Small mole / Right foot

Organization

The Society of Sparkling Squirrel

Emotions

Insecure

Personality

Uselessly Faithful

Motive

Take over a country to inspire a rebellion

Bodyguard

Mitch the "Skinny Sprite"

Physical Size

Toy

Story

Additional Locations

The Microscopic Lagoon

Desolate Park

Casualties Creek

Random Events

Dracula Strikes the church bell

Cat Strikes the church bell

Bear catches on fire

Crowd Strikes the church bell

World

Stores

Roman's Trinket Ventures

Matthews's Shirt Mall

Henry's Trophy Labs

Morgan's Shoe Horn Group

Traps

Bestow Curse

Ghoul Touch of Vulnerability

Objects

Trinket that is glowing

Trophy made of heavy metal

Secret Shirt

Hidden Diary

Magazine of Vulnerability

Wand of Wonder

Nearest priest falls badly out of favor with his deity

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Julia Matthews "King Ribs" Merchant Soda Sharp Things
Adalynn Henry "Indigo Cheesecakes" Mole Sharp Things Sun Glasses
Hazel Leon Hairdresser Dice Syrup
Roman Francis Cranky Acorns Doors
Adalyn Morgan Physician Paperclips Trees

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).