The Director Welcomes You

The Society The Blackest Black Protocol

#7ad82d

Location

Humid, Warm Japan

Time of Day

5:49

Extraction Point

159 Miles SW

Time to Complete

1 Hours

Meddlers,
It seems "Drowsy Bat" has gone level 3. They have been broadcasting this message "A lone flower growing at the Seven Dead". We need you to eliminate them, Usefully. Their last known location was recorded at 15:12. You have a Vicious Nuts and Bolts as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Anastasia Gutierrez

Alias

"Drowsy Bat"

Features

4' 8"

Heterochromia eyes

Faint curved scar / Crotch

Organization

The Community of Victorian Game

Emotions

Depressed

Personality

Usefully Mushy

Motive

Take over a government to lead a mutiny

Bodyguard

Jerry the "Brief Lion"

Physical Size

Little

Story

Additional Locations

The Breezy Peninsula

Archaic Lagoon

Destiny Crypt

Random Events

Transport Integrates silently into the group

Crying Child is robbed

Corncob Skips merrily

Beggar is being loudly arrested

World

Stores

Amir's Bed Ventures

Wise's Pair of Statues Properties

Love's Letter Opener Threads

George's Barrel Threads

Traps

Portcullis

Suspicious door with lock of The Blackest Black

Objects

Bed made of heavy metal

Letter Opener that has been hollowed out

Secret Pair of Statues

Hidden Sabre

Boiled Leather of The Blackest Black

Wand of Wonder

For 1d4 days, caster can neutralize poisons by touch

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Melanie Wise "Plump Tongues" Merchant Water Chickens
Emilia Love "Chunky Pinky's" Mole Drinking Syrup
Malachi Swanson Frazzled Clocks Sticks
Amir Klein Musician Acorns Hammers
Emmanuel George Fortune Cookie Writer Easter Water

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).