The Director Welcomes You

The Monument Bitterness Protocol

#1e4bad

Location

Balmy, Humid Tajikistan

Time of Day

13:3

Extraction Point

97 Miles SWW

Time to Complete

38 Hours

Snoopers,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Crate made of heavy metal. Get to Tajikistan at 22:08

Good Luck.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Malachi Hardy

Alias

"All Spirit"

Features

4' 2"

Amber eyes

Stretch Marks / Left middle finger

Organization

The Firm of Jealous Wizard

Emotions

Uncertain

Personality

Punctually Luminous

Motive

Take over a government to become famous

Bodyguard

Al the "Delightful Minotaur"

Physical Size

Tremendous

Story

Additional Locations

The Humid Suburbs

Bustling Carnival

Animosity Park

Random Events

Store gathers near a point of interest

Beggar Gets their hand chopped off

Nearby Gas Tank overflows

Vagabond Glistens gently

World

Stores

Charles's Crate Group

Alvarado's Fruit Bowl Atelier

Mack's Bench Bureau

Carlson's Sconce Threads

Traps

Floor Net

Camouflaged Pit of Bitterness

Objects

Crate made of heavy metal

Bench children's replica

Secret Fruit Bowl

Hidden Newspaper

Bracer of Bitterness

Wand of Wonder

When caster next enters his home, he doubts he’s ever lived there

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Mary Alvarado "King Toes" Merchant Paper Eggs
Jasmine Mack "Chunky Lox" Mole Sticks Limes
Tucker Patel Cheerful Dice Sharks
Charles Tran Artist Doves Trucks
Carson Carlson Tailor Bread Rocks

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).