The Director Welcomes You

The Weakly Wrapped Agent

#bc8faa

Location

Overcast, Gloomy Niger

Time of Day

1:7

Extraction Point

68 Miles N

Time to Complete

17 Hours

Detectives,
We need your help. Agent Hazel Yates has gone missing and we believe "Cramped Yeti" is responsible. They were last seen in Niger at 22:17. The agent sent one final message – "A black cat runs past at the Hollow oak tree". Take this Rusty Blender - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Elena Santiago

Alias

"Cramped Yeti"

Features

4' 5"

Amber eyes

Large moles / Left middle finger

Organization

The Society of Massive Sewer

Emotions

Cheerful

Personality

Weakly Refined

Motive

Take over a country for scientific discovery

Bodyguard

Darnell the "Slimey ghost"

Physical Size

Tall

Story

Additional Locations

The Wrapped Forge

Ancient Peninsula

Reservation Grove

Random Events

Beggar emerges

Spectator Is being kidnapped

Skeleton Balances on a ledge

Vagabond is being loudly arrested

World

Stores

Adaline's Counter Consulting

Torres's Trophy Boutique

Christensen's Lounge Chair Unlimited

Yates's crutch Du jour

Traps

Floor Net

Burning Hands of Darkness

Objects

Counter that is glowing

Lounge Chair made of heavy metal

Secret Trophy

Hidden Lipstick

Pants of Darkness

Wand of Wonder

Target’s body, clothing, and gear are uniformly bright orange

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Aiden Torres "Small Pastrami's" Merchant Easter Contracts
Ruby Christensen "Indigo Arms" Mole Mirrors Cooking
Athena Bennett Judge Candles Attention
Adaline Gomez Drunken Trucks Basketball
Hazel Yates Surgeon Sticks Scarves

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).