The Director Welcomes You

Who is Simon The Pope?

#c14231

Location

Warm, Humid Vatican City

Time of Day

22:49

Extraction Point

44 Miles NEE

Time to Complete

1 Hours

Scrutinizers,
As you can see you are trapped inside approach a Overpopulated Fortress . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Italian Owlman" is responsible and they sent us this message - "Tracks of wolves can be seen at the Grey Hollow". Your mission was black bag, achieve what you can.

Hopefully you still have that Sharp Ashtray hidden on you.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Nicole Benson

Alias

"Italian Owlman"

Features

4' 1"

Heterochromia eyes

Small mole / Left eye

Organization

The Guild of Thankful Computer

Emotions

Satisfied

Personality

Unnecessarily Jocular

Motive

Disrupt the military to lead a mutiny

Bodyguard

Simon the "Damp Wraith"

Physical Size

Mini

Story

Additional Locations

The Rapid Lake

Crowded Festival

Well-being Pond

Random Events

Bellhop Glistens gently

Diary Catches leprosy

Gunshot overflows

Majestic Painting Is getting confiscated

World

Stores

Rachel's Toolbox Mall

Clark's Pan Closet

Porter's Stairwell Market

Crawford's Desk Supermarket

Traps

Poison Dart

Portcullis of Grave Consequences

Objects

Toolbox made of heavy metal

Stairwell made of heavy metal

Secret Pan

Hidden Spoon

Credit Card of Grave Consequences

Wand of Wonder

Target reflection appears in every mirror within 10 miles

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Carter Clark "Little Lungs" Merchant Squirrels Peanut Butter
Joel Porter "Indigo Hearts" Mole Photography Deodorant
Isaac Alvarado Frustrated Bears Lions
Rachel Ortega Consultant Tissues Jazz
Leilani Crawford Secretary Painting Toilets

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).