The Director Welcomes You

The Lunch Delight Protocol

#53394a

Location

Calm, Cloudy Bhutan

Time of Day

12:55

Extraction Point

10 Miles SE

Time to Complete

21 Hours

Agents,
I have sent you to climb a Crowded Masquerade to look for a suspect by the name "Dull Wraith". This mission is clandestine. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to slow them down. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The group finds a sword in a stone at the Unicorn Nest".

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

β€” The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Silas Boyd

Alias

"Dull Wraith"

Features

4' 10"

Gray eyes

Large deep scar / Neck

Organization

The Bureau of Bitter Meat

Emotions

Absorbed

Personality

Safely Zealous

Motive

Disrupt the military out of greed

Bodyguard

Bobby the "Icy all-seeing eye"

Physical Size

Minuscule

Story

Additional Locations

The Jealous Sanctuary

Underwater Palace

Bitterness Park

Random Events

Husband Is under a curse

Diary Calls menacingly

Reindeer Strikes the church bell

VAT of Broth drops from the sky

World

Stores

Aaron's Figurine Logistics

Blair's Painting Bureau

Fields's File Group

Adkins's Toolbox Discount

Traps

Moving Executioner Statue

Earthquake of Delight

Objects

Figurine children's replica

File that has been hollowed out

Secret Painting

Hidden Hatchet

Notebook of Delight

Wand of Wonder

Magical animals seem to mock the caster while he’s not looking

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Finley Blair "Black Bones" Merchant Jigsaw Puzzles Potatoes
Elise Fields "Heavy Dumplings" Mole Soccer Pillows
Xavier Aguilar Teacher Doves Soda
Aaron Andrews Meteorologist Glitter Hamsters
Londyn Adkins Judge Lamps Technology

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).