The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Dilligent Necklace

#6b0301

Location

Sunny, Cloudy Mali

Time of Day

7:17

Extraction Point

188 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

15 Hours

Meddlers,
It seems "Fat Spirit" has gone level 2. They have been broadcasting this message "An out of place door appears at the Painted Sands". We need you to eliminate them, Solemnly. Their last known location was recorded at 06:23. You have a Soft Cigarette as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Calvin Romero

Alias

"Fat Spirit"

Features

5' 8"

Amber eyes

Faint curved scar / Right thumb

Organization

The Committee of Abundant Activity

Emotions

Inferior

Personality

Solemnly Empty

Motive

Disrupt the military to become the best

Bodyguard

Ali the "Edgy Werewolf"

Physical Size

Big

Story

Additional Locations

The Dilligent Creek

Overpopulated Reef

Amnesia Villa

Random Events

German Trench Club strikes the ground

Skeleton catches on fire

Dead Animal Lunges at the group

Procession approaches

World

Stores

Elias's Canopy Bed Du jour

Peters's Letter Opener Little shop

Guzman's Tea Pot Industries

Elliott's Mantle Technologies

Traps

Extended Bane

Burning Hands of Delight

Objects

Canopy Bed that is glowing

Tea Pot that is glowing

Secret Letter Opener

Hidden Scimitar

Spikes of Delight

Wand of Wonder

All within 50 yards have clouded vision for 2d6 rounds

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Malachi Peters "Four Pastrami's" Merchant Sponges Flashlights
Harmony Guzman "Plump Lox" Mole Candles Hamsters
Lily Erickson Blacksmith Water Horses
Elias Schmidt Dietitian Television Candles
Juliana Elliott Librarian Christmas Syrup

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).