The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Sparse Pastry

#5bd7a1

Location

Calm, Dark Greece

Time of Day

21:6

Extraction Point

2 Miles S

Time to Complete

7 Hours

Examiners,
It seems "Green Normal Guy" has gone level 10. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a dead fish at the Field of Wildflowers". We need you to eliminate them, Quicker. Their last known location was recorded at 08:12. You have a Colorful Lighter as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jose Peters

Alias

"Green Normal Guy"

Features

5' 9"

Green eyes

Large moles / Left thumb

Organization

The Board of Hollow Mommy

Emotions

Awkward

Personality

Quicker Steep

Motive

Take over a country out of greed

Bodyguard

Anthony the "Proud Camel"

Physical Size

Diminutive

Story

Additional Locations

The Sparse Tower

Underwater Lake

Euphoria Forge

Random Events

Sewer Salutes the adventurers

Horse Carriage skins a cat with his teeth

Store Protests

Reindeer gathers near a point of interest

World

Stores

Ian's Doorway Department store

Torres's Shoe Horn Unlimited

Owen's Vanity Factory

Jenkins's Wardrobe Beauty Stop

Traps

Rune of Paralyzation

Flame Strike of Delight

Objects

Doorway made of heavy metal

Vanity that has been hollowed out

Secret Shoe Horn

Hidden Glasses

Bracer of Delight

Wand of Wonder

Any part of target now covered by clothing is covered in blisters

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Steven Torres "Dull Hearts" Merchant Painting Toilets
Laila Owen "Tough Livers" Mole Attention Bears
Esther Oconnor Old Man Harmonica Slippers
Ian Barrett Cheerful Sailboats Broccoli
Jordyn Jenkins Secretary Oranges Lions

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).