The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Millions Psychiatrist

#da16d6

Location

Gloomy, Frigid Azerbaijan

Time of Day

7:49

Extraction Point

129 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

35 Hours

Spy Deputies,
I have sent you to the outside of a Polluted Lake to look for a suspect by the name "Small Banshee". This mission is black bag. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to find where their funding is coming from. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A shrine is nearby at the Painted Sands".

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

— The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Rose Lane

Alias

"Small Banshee"

Features

4' 4"

Red eyes

Large moles / Right foot

Organization

The Committee of Limpid Fact

Emotions

Interested

Personality

Meaningfully Fat

Motive

Make a lot of money to better Humanity

Bodyguard

Alex the "Square Beast"

Physical Size

Microscopic

Story

Additional Locations

The Millions City

Archaic Lagoon

Extermination Maze

Random Events

Vagabond skins a cat with his teeth

Bank Salutes the adventurers

Skeleton Gets their hand chopped off

Druid is robbed

World

Stores

David's Lounge Chair Bureau

French's Desk Closet

Moss's Notebook Specialities

Goodwin's Key Couture

Traps

Reverse Gravity

Suspicious door with lock of Darkness

Objects

Lounge Chair that is glowing

Notebook with a False bottom

Secret Desk

Hidden Targe

Rapier of Darkness

Wand of Wonder

When caster next enters his home, he realizes it’s made of coral

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Rylee French "Three Throats" Merchant Scarves Music
Sawyer Moss "Wild Cappuccinos" Mole Bells Contracts
Isabel Swanson Professional Bridesmaid Peanut Butter Dice
David Curtis Professional Bridesmaid Clocks Peanut Butter
Natalia Goodwin Cranky Candles Pillows

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).