The Director Welcomes You

The Wrongly Grumpy Agent

#13a3b1

Location

Stormy, Icy Japan

Time of Day

24:9

Extraction Point

188 Miles SSE

Time to Complete

26 Hours

Informants,
We need your help. Agent Jade Quinn has gone missing and we believe "Golden Meerkat" is responsible. They were last seen in Japan at 13:11. The agent sent one final message – "A shrine is nearby at the Eye of Heaven". Take this Heavy Bonsai Tree - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Paige Ingram

Alias

"Golden Meerkat"

Features

4' 6"

Green eyes

Large deep scar / Left leg

Organization

The Brotherhood of Scruffy Crime

Emotions

Hesitant

Personality

Wrongly Loose

Motive

Take over a country because of grief and loss

Bodyguard

Johnny the "Weak Werewolf"

Physical Size

Mini

Story

Additional Locations

The Grumpy Mansion

Deserted Forest

Fury Carousal

Random Events

Corncob overflows

Reindeer Is frozen into a block of ice

Robber Calls menacingly

Bunny scurries by

World

Stores

Marcus's Plaster Bust Bazaar

Sparks's Certificate Consulting

Marquez's End Table Market

Quinn's Candlesticks Logistics

Traps

Water-Filled Room

Suspicious door with lock of Sanitation

Objects

Plaster Bust made of heavy metal

End Table children's replica

Secret Certificate

Hidden Polearm

Button of Sanitation

Wand of Wonder

The planet’s average temperature rises 1° per week for 4d6 weeks

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Asher Sparks "Quiet Pinky's" Merchant Glass Technology
Bryce Marquez "Heavy Muscles" Mole Syrup Water
Alaina Manning Counselor Sun Glasses Shirts
Marcus Vasquez Annoyed Acorns Rubber Stamps
Jade Quinn Shadow Physics Eggs

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).