The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Cold Prison

#5e7887

Location

Windy, Sunny Canada

Time of Day

1:0

Extraction Point

16 Miles E

Time to Complete

7 Hours

Shadows,
We need your help. Agent Calvin Graves has gone missing and we believe "Fat Drunken Irish Guy" is responsible. They were last seen in Canada at 09:04. The agent sent one final message – "Clouds develop quickly at the Ghost Town". Take this Polished Umbrella - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Sebastian Manning

Alias

"Fat Drunken Irish Guy"

Features

6' 11"

Blue eyes

A second belly button / Left hand

Organization

The Bunch of Swollen Pancake

Emotions

Regretful

Personality

Owlishly Thorough

Motive

Disrupt the military to become the best

Bodyguard

David the "Rare Beholder"

Physical Size

Little

Story

Additional Locations

The Cold Carnival

Overpopulated Creek

Bravery Peninsula

Random Events

VAT of Broth Bounces oddly

Rustler Is getting confiscated

Gypsy chase a suspect

Biscuit Evades the law

World

Stores

Brantley's Pipe Worldwide

Mendoza's Hanging Birdcage Warehouse

Hart's Globe Convenience store

Graves's Hat Worldwide

Traps

Dropping Ceiling

Fireball of Secrecy

Objects

Pipe that has been hollowed out

Globe made of heavy metal

Secret Hanging Birdcage

Hidden Sticks

Diary of Secrecy

Wand of Wonder

Rope hisses like a snake while target uses it

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Roman Mendoza "Little Pastrami's" Merchant Syrup Slippers
Xavier Hart "Short Pastrami's" Mole Stickers Soap
Athena Long Cheerful Cats Lamps
Brantley Hansen Secretary Bells Chocolate
Calvin Graves Human Statue Sticks Music

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).