The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Agreeable Bees

#6573c7

Location

Stormy, Bright Mongolia

Time of Day

21:5

Extraction Point

126 Miles N

Time to Complete

23 Hours

Investigators,
I have sent you to the top of a Abandoned Labratory to look for a suspect by the name "Two Cyclops". This mission is anti-surveillance. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to stop the outbreak. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The group finds a sword in a stone at the Big Momma".

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

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Isaiah Joseph

Alias

"Two Cyclops"

Features

4' 11"

Brown eyes

Small mole / Left thumb

Organization

The Crew of Dubious Clam

Emotions

Sympathy

Personality

Helpfully Ubiquitous

Motive

Disrupt the military out of survival

Bodyguard

Johnny the "Contemporary Ogre"

Physical Size

Gigantic

Story

Additional Locations

The Agreeable Tower

Archaic Palace

Pleasure Tower

Random Events

Gypsy Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

Baker Evades the law

Majestic Painting screams at the top of their lungs

Storm Is being detained

World

Stores

Jude's Key Factory

Lee's Bonsai Solutions

Morrison's Pocket watch Productions

Lawrence's Credenza Unlimited

Traps

Incendiary Cloud

Floor Net of Extermination

Objects

Key children's replica

Pocket watch with a False bottom

Secret Bonsai

Hidden Blindfold

Bow of Extermination

Wand of Wonder

If caster is wearing a magic ring, he can’t remove it by himself

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Stella Lee "Indigo Forearms" Merchant Limes Chalk
Ian Morrison "Small Muscles" Mole Flowers Music
Claire Hopkins Electrician Chickens Death
Jude Castillo Pharmacist Soda Potatoes
Ella Lawrence Banker Water Chili

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).