The Director Welcomes You

The Buffalo Nickel Prosperity Protocol

#858766

Location

Arid, Gorgeous Taiwan

Time of Day

13:38

Extraction Point

139 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

42 Hours

Shadows,
I have sent you to be locked inside of a Underwater Jungle to look for a suspect by the name "Dull Elephant". This mission is counterintelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to disable the bomb. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "An object nearby starts bleeding at the Stone Circle".

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

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Daisy Kelley

Alias

"Dull Elephant"

Features

4' 8"

Hazel eyes

Large moles / Neck

Organization

The Sisterhood of Steep Growth

Emotions

Jealous

Personality

Always Jolly

Motive

Make a lot of money out of survival

Bodyguard

Jackie the "Thoughtless Aardvark"

Physical Size

Short

Story

Additional Locations

The Helpful Palace

Hidden Creek

Downfall Chateau

Random Events

Sewer Glistens gently

Vegetable gathers near a point of interest

Dead Animal chase a suspect

Dead Animal Lunges at the group

World

Stores

Nolan's Counter International

Sparks's Canopy Bed International

Miller's Grandfather Clock Creative

Hubbard's Large book Worldwide

Traps

Bestow Curse

Arrow of Prosperity

Objects

Counter with a False bottom

Grandfather Clock children's replica

Secret Canopy Bed

Hidden Goblet

Bracelet of Prosperity

Wand of Wonder

Target asserts that his current form isn’t his true form

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Jasmine Sparks "Short Ankles" Merchant Bears Chocolate
Oliver Miller "Mini Thumbs" Mole Cartography Football
Delilah Parsons Soul Doves Death
Nolan Solis Acupuncturist Gym Memberships Eggs
Lucas Hubbard Secretary Broccoli Photography

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).