The Director Welcomes You

The Flat Polarbear Plight

#524cbd

Location

Overcast, Windless Liechtenstein

Time of Day

20:22

Extraction Point

158 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

44 Hours

Operatives,
We need your help. Agent Christopher Hawkins has gone missing and we believe "Yellow Serpent" is responsible. They were last seen in Liechtenstein at 14:05. The agent sent one final message – "A shadow passes at the Snowy garrison". Take this Light Sun Lotion - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Sophia Sparks

Alias

"Yellow Serpent"

Features

7' 1"

Green eyes

A second belly button / Left leg

Organization

The Sisterhood of Blue Party

Emotions

Anguished

Personality

Innocently Vast

Motive

Take over a country to corrupt everyone

Bodyguard

Alex the "Enlightened Pheonix"

Physical Size

Gigantic

Story

Additional Locations

The Flat Pond

Underground Maze

Obliteration Mansion

Random Events

VAT of Broth Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

Skeleton Is frozen into a block of ice

Pine Branch Is being tortured

Gang Catches leprosy

World

Stores

Ian's Kitchen knife Beauty Stop

Bowen's Coat of Arms Boutique

Lopez's Mounted Animal Du jour

Hawkins's Hatrack Labs

Traps

Wall Blade

Portcullis of Laughter

Objects

Kitchen knife that has been hollowed out

Mounted Animal that has been hollowed out

Secret Coat of Arms

Hidden Helmet

Coin of Laughter

Wand of Wonder

Target can climb like a monkey but is 40% likely to become one

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Liam Bowen "Tough Lungs" Merchant Quartz Crystals Bells
Alexander Lopez "Quiet Elbows" Mole Money Toilets
Jeremiah Mitchell Optimistic Stickers Doves
Ian Carroll Plumber Limes Honey
Christopher Hawkins Physician Horses Ice Cubes

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).