The Director Welcomes You

The Sponge Endownment Protocol

#e47bc0

Location

Breezy, Balmy Liberia

Time of Day

4:59

Extraction Point

192 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

37 Hours

Investigators,
I have sent you to descend into Deserted Peninsula to look for a suspect by the name "Tough giant". This mission is clandestine. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to retrieve the stolen intel. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A roll of thunder at the Apple Orchard".

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

— The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Micah McCormick

Alias

"Tough giant"

Features

4' 7"

Hazel eyes

A second belly button / Left eye

Organization

The Company of Deep Zipper

Emotions

Hostile

Personality

Famously Late

Motive

Disrupt the military to become famous

Bodyguard

Jackie the "Deep Mermaid"

Physical Size

Teeny

Story

Additional Locations

The Encrusted Citadel

Bustling Festival

Calamity Pond

Random Events

Safe Is frozen into a block of ice

Leopard Becomes wounded

Tramp explodes

Dozen Eggs Is being kidnapped

World

Stores

Sophie's Pipe International

Howard's Tea Set Boutique

Marshall's Vanity Du jour

Dominguez's Pair of Statues Technologies

Traps

Large Net

Poison Wall Spikes of Endownment

Objects

Pipe that is glowing

Vanity with a False bottom

Secret Tea Set

Hidden Mace

Javelins of Endownment

Wand of Wonder

Any nearby undead attack the target exclusively for 1d10 rounds

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Payton Howard "Wild Boy" Merchant Notes Cellphones
Nova Marshall "White Bones" Mole Shirts Tissues
Hadley Walker Flirty Potatoes Snowglobes
Sophie Shelton Graphic Designer Whipped Cream Contracts
Isabella Dominguez Psychiatrist Boxes Chickens

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).