The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Obedient Industry

#de8770

Location

Gloomy, Wet Guyana

Time of Day

3:42

Extraction Point

41 Miles E

Time to Complete

43 Hours

Meddlers,
We need your help. Agent Rowan Rhodes has gone missing and we believe "Golden Yeti" is responsible. They were last seen in Guyana at 00:05. The agent sent one final message – "A black cat runs past at the Field of Wildflowers". Take this Mechanical Candle - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Harrison Miranda

Alias

"Golden Yeti"

Features

4' 6"

Brown eyes

Large moles / Left leg

Organization

The Company of Slatted Pastry

Emotions

Exhausted

Personality

Seldom Rabid

Motive

Take over a government for honor

Bodyguard

Darnell the "Prickly Spirit"

Physical Size

Teeny

Story

Additional Locations

The Obedient Sanctuary

Polluted Reef

Enjoyment Citadel

Random Events

Toilet Calls menacingly

Gypsy stop the party and asks questions

Odor explodes

Swarm of Bees overflows

World

Stores

Mason's Globe Convenience store

Wilson's Kitchen table Factory

Reid's Stool Chic Chåteau

Rhodes's Mural Beauty Stop

Traps

Poisoned Arrow

Box of Brown Mold of Vulnerability

Objects

Globe children's replica

Stool children's replica

Secret Kitchen table

Hidden Collar

Banana of Vulnerability

Wand of Wonder

Events now happening nearby are in exact accordance with prophecy

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Ella Wilson "Small Arms" Merchant Slippers Pillows
Payton Reid "Golden Bagels" Mole Rabbits Water
Cecilia Stevenson Railroad Conductor Chili Fire
Mason Mendoza Headhunter Stickers Cookies
Rowan Rhodes Police Officer Lipstick Attention

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).