The Director Welcomes You

The Terribly Hissing Agent

#33e507

Location

Warm, Windless Saint Lucia

Time of Day

12:37

Extraction Point

103 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

20 Hours

Spy Deputies,
It seems "Small Mermaid" has gone level 6. They have been broadcasting this message "A shadow passes at the Broken Face". We need you to eliminate them, Terribly. Their last known location was recorded at 03:22. You have a Light Mirror as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Ian Richardson

Alias

"Small Mermaid"

Features

4' 11"

Gray eyes

Large moles / Crotch

Organization

The Incorporated of Rapid Jizz

Emotions

Depressed

Personality

Terribly Dead

Motive

Make a lot of money out of survival

Bodyguard

David the "Brutish Alien"

Physical Size

Limited

Story

Additional Locations

The Hissing Spring

Bustling Island

Bravery Fortress

Random Events

Crow Strikes the church bell

Whore Is being kidnapped

Swarm of Bees is heard screaming

Vegetable is loose

World

Stores

Laila's Paperweight Department store

Wells's Sofa Factory

Horton's Pocket watch Supermarket

Holland's Flowers Growing Hole

Traps

Floor Net

Flooded Corridor of Cleanliness

Objects

Paperweight children's replica

Pocket watch that is glowing

Secret Sofa

Hidden Sickle

Chastity Belt of Cleanliness

Wand of Wonder

Someone nearby now has baleen instead of conventional teeth

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Madeline Wells "Gross Brains" Merchant Comic Books Sun Glasses
Gracie Horton "Orange Waffles" Mole Flowers Scarves
Nicole Riley Butcher Photography Syrup
Laila Jacobs Mechanic Candy Hammers
Nova Holland Cheerful Slippers Clocks

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).