The Director Welcomes You

The Playfully Silly Agent

#5cea58

Location

Dark, Dark Serbia

Time of Day

24:7

Extraction Point

65 Miles NW

Time to Complete

23 Hours

Shadows,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Candelabra with a False bottom. Get to Serbia at 14:20

Good Luck.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Esther Erickson

Alias

"Plump mammoth"

Features

5' 6"

Heterochromia eyes

Faint curved scar / Left hand

Organization

The Firm of Wrong Oven

Emotions

Disliked

Personality

Playfully Curved

Motive

Disrupt the military to lead a mutiny

Bodyguard

Randy the "Ugliest Dwarf"

Physical Size

Minute

Story

Additional Locations

The Silly Grove

Ancient Fortress

Ice Crypt

Random Events

Pack of Wild Dogs is being loudly arrested

Chicken explodes

Crow is heard screaming

Bag of Lemons drops from the sky

World

Stores

Judy's Candelabra Market

Padilla's Painting Collective

James's Hat Threads

Grant's Statuette Convenience store

Traps

Lightning Bolt

Symbol of Hypnosis of Animosity

Objects

Candelabra with a False bottom

Hat made of heavy metal

Secret Painting

Hidden Coif

Knife of Animosity

Wand of Wonder

Caster fears non-magical, non-humanoid mammals

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Alice Padilla "Wild Matzo Balls" Merchant Easter Batteries
Nicholas James "Orange Spleens" Mole Ice Cubes Books
Eva Barrett Talent agent Eggs Mirrors
Judy Estrada Cheerful Gym Memberships Octopus
Taylor Grant Chief Executive Officer Hamsters Doors

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).