The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Wailing Moon

#1f24ca

Location

Gorgeous, Arid Côte d’Ivoire

Time of Day

19:6

Extraction Point

43 Miles N

Time to Complete

37 Hours

Spy Deputies,
It seems "Casual Sprite" has gone level 9. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a random cow at the Boneyard". We need you to eliminate them, Tightly. Their last known location was recorded at 00:06. You have a Vicious Paint Brush as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Nevaeh Adkins

Alias

"Casual Sprite"

Features

6' 10"

Brown eyes

Faint curved scar / Left arm

Organization

The Council of Old Plunger

Emotions

Adoration

Personality

Tightly Limited

Motive

Take over a government out of greed

Bodyguard

Sam the "Swollen Mongoose"

Physical Size

Miniature

Story

Additional Locations

The Wailing Lake

Hidden Forest

Perspiration Barn Dance

Random Events

VAT of Broth Is being detained

Baker Attempts to rob a bank

Sewer Attempts to rob a bank

Chicken overflows

World

Stores

Alexa's Landscape Labs

Tate's Mantle Productions

Bailey's Trunk Warehouse

Mueller's Brass Replica Industries

Traps

Ceiling Pendulum

Tripping Chain of Endownment

Objects

Landscape with a False bottom

Trunk with a False bottom

Secret Mantle

Hidden Blowgun

Bracer of Endownment

Wand of Wonder

Any fires set by caster jingle like wind chimes while they burn

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Iris Tate "Three Cheesecakes" Merchant Drinking Singing
Peyton Bailey "Left Dumplings" Mole Whipped Cream Physics
Harmony Holt Chef Ice Cubes Cellphones
Alexa Oliver Headhunter Eggs Sharks
Ryker Mueller Dietitian Football Bread

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).