The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Tertiary Loaf

#458805

Location

Gloomy, Dry Tonga

Time of Day

15:14

Extraction Point

55 Miles NW

Time to Complete

17 Hours

Shadows,
It seems "The Sphinx" has gone level 7. They have been broadcasting this message "The earth shakes briefly at the Tempest". We need you to eliminate them, Quickly. Their last known location was recorded at 07:17. You have a Clandestine Hot Glue Gun as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Leah Ferguson

Alias

"The Sphinx"

Features

5' 8"

Gray eyes

A second belly button / Left leg

Organization

The Unit of Tinkling Bubble

Emotions

Hateful

Personality

Quickly Acidic

Motive

Take over a country to become famous

Bodyguard

Jerry the "Disruptive Mutants"

Physical Size

Substantial

Story

Additional Locations

The Tertiary Isle

Underground Manor

Well-being Creek

Random Events

Chanting Cult Attempts to rob a bank

Fairy screams at the top of their lungs

Corncob Bursts loudly

Gypsy Ignites violently

World

Stores

Andrea's Chaise Unlimited

Adkins's Mantle Group

Mueller's Grandfather Clock Little shop

Grant's Rubber Plant Mall

Traps

Arrow

Phantasmal Killer of Contentment

Objects

Chaise children's replica

Grandfather Clock with a False bottom

Secret Mantle

Hidden Goblet

Coin of Contentment

Wand of Wonder

Target is tormented by the awareness of his mortality

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Londyn Adkins "Green Dumplings" Merchant Batteries Music
Ella Mueller "Sharp Spleens" Mole Cookies Football
Bentley Byrd Accountant Mirrors Sticks
Andrea McKinney Demon Writers Peanut Butter
Alice Grant Frustrated Rubber Bands Washing Machines

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).