The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Braised Safety

#748195

Location

Hot, Breezy Guinea-Bissau

Time of Day

22:28

Extraction Point

192 Miles SWW

Time to Complete

13 Hours

Examiners,
It seems "Cheap Cockatrice" has gone level 2. They have been broadcasting this message "A shadow passes at the dancing-trees". We need you to eliminate them, Defiantly. Their last known location was recorded at 16:10. You have a Feminine Atlas as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jude Curtis

Alias

"Cheap Cockatrice"

Features

6' 5"

Gray eyes

Faint curved scar / Crotch

Organization

The Council of Shrilling Cactus

Emotions

Regretful

Personality

Defiantly Tasty

Motive

Make a lot of money to inspire a rebellion

Bodyguard

James the "Colossal Hydra"

Physical Size

Fat

Story

Additional Locations

The Braised Forge

Abandoned Manor

Laughter Citadel

Random Events

Soup is robbed

Dracula Is under a curse

Mutant runs over an infant

Druid grabs a lady's purse

World

Stores

David's Plaster Bust Emporium

Nguyen's Trunk Du jour

Gregory's Counter Beauty Stop

Gordon's Bed Creative

Traps

Suspicious door with lock

Insanity Mist Vapor of Contentment

Objects

Plaster Bust that is glowing

Counter that is glowing

Secret Trunk

Hidden Club

Diary of Contentment

Wand of Wonder

Target asserts that time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Malachi Nguyen "Dull Pinky's" Merchant Lamps Technology
Luna Gregory "Five Dumplings" Mole Flowers Tea
Isaiah Goodman Acupuncturist Flashlights Rubber Stamps
David Medina Secretary Music Flowers
Oscar Gordon Musician Sailboats Toilets

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).