The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Mecha Yam

#458559

Location

Balmy, Foggy Egypt

Time of Day

23:28

Extraction Point

29 Miles SW

Time to Complete

8 Hours

Meddlers,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Globe children's replica. Get to Egypt at 04:23

Good Luck.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Steven Torres

Alias

"White Beast"

Features

4' 5"

Amber eyes

Small mole / Left thumb

Organization

The Task Force of Facetious Person

Emotions

Hostile

Personality

Well Sturdy

Motive

Disrupt the military to be left alone

Bodyguard

Larry the "Annoying Elves"

Physical Size

Sizable

Story

Additional Locations

The Mecha Shelter

Crowded Fortress

Censorship Villa

Random Events

Gunshot Catches leprosy

Butter Shipment Catches leprosy

Dozen Eggs Is hurled at the adventurers

Gunshot Is hurled at the adventurers

World

Stores

Gael's Globe Boutique

Logan's Lamp Couture

Hines's Workbench Beauty Stop

Mack's Loveseat Convenience store

Traps

Falling Block

Flame Strike of Mania

Objects

Globe children's replica

Workbench made of heavy metal

Secret Lamp

Hidden Rapier

Blindfold of Mania

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s feet are burned as if he’s waded through ankle-deep acid

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Alyssa Logan "Sharp Legs" Merchant Sponges Peanut Butter
Andrew Hines "Drowsy Hot Dogs" Mole Gym Memberships Rabbits
Adaline Tran Meteorologist Oranges Soap
Gael Morrison Spirit Clocks Drinking
Jocelyn Mack Architect Attention Paperclips

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).