The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Jocular Fifth

#96759e

Location

Dark, Dull The Gambia

Time of Day

0:32

Extraction Point

135 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

21 Hours

Informants,
We need your help. Agent Roman Saunders has gone missing and we believe "Heavy Leprechaun" is responsible. They were last seen in The Gambia at 13:23. The agent sent one final message – "A mysterious key is found on the ground at the Underwater cave". Take this Feminine Vise - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Morgan Klein

Alias

"Heavy Leprechaun"

Features

7' 9"

Brown eyes

Small mole / Right leg

Organization

The Crew of Wooden Method

Emotions

Worried

Personality

Wonderfully Sinful

Motive

Take over a government for fear of the heroes

Bodyguard

Terry the "Massive Meerkat"

Physical Size

Baby

Story

Additional Locations

The Jocular Suburbs

Touristy Grove

Exuberance Island

Random Events

Drunk is loose

Husband Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

Building grabs a lady's purse

Building Is being detained

World

Stores

Brielle's Brass Replica Factory

Shelton's Glass Jars Wardrobe

Gregory's Coat of Arms Market

Saunders's Platter Discount

Traps

Black Tentacles

Ghoul Touch of Influence

Objects

Brass Replica with a False bottom

Coat of Arms children's replica

Secret Glass Jars

Hidden Book

Spoon of Influence

Wand of Wonder

Anyone touching the target in the next turn suffers severe burns

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Levi Shelton "Cramped Toes" Merchant Books Writers
Eloise Gregory "Blue Hot Dogs" Mole Acorns Tea
Lillian Howell Surveyor Tigers Dinosaurs
Brielle Diaz Physician Glass Hammers
Roman Saunders Athlete Tigers Cousins

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).