The Director Welcomes You

The Seemingly Tart Agent

#6c7d4f

Location

Dark, Mild Tonga

Time of Day

8:22

Extraction Point

163 Miles SW

Time to Complete

36 Hours

Investigators,
I have sent you to the inside of a Ancient Forge to look for a suspect by the name "Drowsy Sloth". This mission is black ops. 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 vagrant asks for food at the hive".

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

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Laila Obrien

Alias

"Drowsy Sloth"

Features

6' 2"

Gray eyes

Large deep scar / Right arm

Organization

The Bunch of Big Arithmetic

Emotions

Inferior

Personality

Seemingly Magnificent

Motive

Take over a country out of desperation

Bodyguard

Joseph the "Broad Banshee"

Physical Size

Small-scale

Story

Additional Locations

The Tart Palace

Hidden Festival

Oblivion Circus

Random Events

Mutant Finds gold in the water

Goblet Strikes the church bell

Druid Spontaneously disintegrates

Nomad Is getting confiscated

World

Stores

Alejandro's Bureau Labs

Mason's Lounge Chair Warehouse

Medina's Footlocker Atelier

Hampton's Tea Pot Little shop

Traps

Blade Barrier

Bear Trap of Extermination

Objects

Bureau made of heavy metal

Footlocker that is glowing

Secret Lounge Chair

Hidden Spikes

Spoon of Extermination

Wand of Wonder

All within 50 yards vanish for 3d10 rounds

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Luis Mason "The Livers" Merchant Socks Teeth
Theodore Medina "Tough Churros" Mole Doves Jigsaw Puzzles
Liliana Francis Cleaner Dice Houses
Alejandro Valdez Paramedic Scarves Money
Amy Hampton Paramedic Water Paperclips

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).