The Director Welcomes You

The Politician Freshness Protocol

#4159bc

Location

Miserable, Miserable Uruguay

Time of Day

0:16

Extraction Point

69 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

11 Hours

Undercover Emissaries,
I have sent you to climb a Desolate Suburbs to look for a suspect by the name "Blue Merfolk". This mission is black ops. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to uncover their plans. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A vagrant asks for money at the Devil's barrow".

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

β€” The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Stella Arnold

Alias

"Blue Merfolk"

Features

5' 2"

Red eyes

Large deep scar / Left thumb

Organization

The company of Garrulous Media

Emotions

Self-conscious

Personality

Knowingly Hungry

Motive

Disrupt the military to achieve their destiny

Bodyguard

Peter the "Thoughtless Spirit"

Physical Size

Insignificant

Story

Additional Locations

The Most House

Desolate Circus

Censorship Isle

Random Events

Soup Balances on a ledge

Vagrant Skips merrily

Carcass Gets their hand chopped off

Nearby Gas Tank Becomes wounded

World

Stores

William's Ceramic Crock Creative

Adkins's Statuette Properties

Meyer's Lipstick Emporium

Lucas's Tapestry Atelier

Traps

Large Net

Symbol of Hypnosis of Freshness

Objects

Ceramic Crock made of heavy metal

Lipstick children's replica

Secret Statuette

Hidden Morning Star

Polearm of Freshness

Wand of Wonder

Target feels as if he’s wearing an enormous hat made of lead

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Sawyer Adkins "Plump Ribs" Merchant Painting Clocks
Eleanor Meyer "Red Kidneys" Mole Cooking Rock n' Roll
Nathaniel May Talent agent Football Cooking
William McGee Stressed Video Games Acorns
Jameson Lucas Surveyor Cousins 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).