The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Victorious Pole

#7cdd6e

Location

Foul, Calm Senegal

Time of Day

14:55

Extraction Point

12 Miles SE

Time to Complete

39 Hours

Investigators,
It seems "Two Hobgoblin" has gone level 3. They have been broadcasting this message "Distant sounds of screaming at the Old battlefield". We need you to eliminate them, Wisely. Their last known location was recorded at 22:04. You have a Delicate Hot Glue Gun as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Grant Bailey

Alias

"Two Hobgoblin"

Features

5' 11"

Heterochromia eyes

A second belly button / Neck

Organization

The Clique of Aggressive Advice

Emotions

Curious

Personality

Wisely Petulant

Motive

Make a lot of money out of greed

Bodyguard

Joseph the "Fried Elves"

Physical Size

Elder

Story

Additional Locations

The Victorious Citadel

Pitch Black Masquerade

Catastrophe Reef

Random Events

Buccaneer meets disaster

Softball Is being tortured

Biscuit overflows

Tramp stop the party and asks questions

World

Stores

Lilly's Drawers Bureau

Hudson's Music Box Little shop

Rodriguez's Pocket watch Industries

Gallagher's Pair of Statues Arcade

Traps

Bricks from Ceiling

Flooded Corridor of Catastrophe

Objects

Drawers with a False bottom

Pocket watch with a False bottom

Secret Music Box

Hidden Diary

Handcuffs of Catastrophe

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s home is flattened by a mysterious magical explosion

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Alejandro Hudson "King Dumplings" Merchant Doves Money
Lyla Rodriguez "Casual Pinky's" Mole Christmas Syrup
Eliza Garner Cobbler Stickers Limes
Lilly Duncan Architect Eggs Slippers
Emmett Gallagher Soul Butterflies Soap

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).