The Director Welcomes You

The Government Mania Protocol

#43dbfb

Location

Windless, Cloudless Seychelles

Time of Day

6:47

Extraction Point

112 Miles NWW

Time to Complete

33 Hours

Scrutinizers,
I have sent you to within a Rundown Barn Dance to look for a suspect by the name "Short Manticore". This mission is clandestine. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to stop the outbreak. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A white horse dashes past at the ruined castle".

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

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Laila Cook

Alias

"Short Manticore"

Features

6' 1"

Hazel eyes

Stretch Marks / Right middle finger

Organization

The Community of Cold Queen

Emotions

Exasperated

Personality

Blissfully Tall

Motive

Take over a country to inspire a rebellion

Bodyguard

Tiffany the "Ugliest Serpent"

Physical Size

Fat

Story

Additional Locations

The Regal Maze

Polluted Maze

Disaster Business

Random Events

Pickpocket Bounces oddly

Procession Becomes wounded

VAT of Broth Is hurled at the adventurers

Pickpocket approaches

World

Stores

Esther's Sink Atelier

Avila's Skeletal Animal Mall

Scott's Shirt Mall

Fitzgerald's Toolset Factory

Traps

Compacting Room

Razor-Wire across Hallway of Mania

Objects

Sink that is glowing

Shirt made of heavy metal

Secret Skeletal Animal

Hidden Polearm

Arrows of Mania

Wand of Wonder

1d100 adorable but demonic puppies scamper through the area

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Harper Avila "One Dumplings" Merchant Soccer Hammers
Isaac Scott "Blue Churros" Mole Oranges Flowers
Annabelle Wang Geologist Toilets Snowglobes
Esther Cook Weakened Rabbits Tea
Lincoln Fitzgerald Railroad Conductor Candy Ice Cubes

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).