The Director Welcomes You

The Wetly Shallow Agent

#1532ce

Location

Hot, Calm Ecuador

Time of Day

13:45

Extraction Point

180 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

19 Hours

Shadows,
We need your help. Agent Arya Wolfe has gone missing and we believe "Cheap Imp" is responsible. They were last seen in Ecuador at 21:08. The agent sent one final message – "The group finds a random cow at the Snowy garrison". Take this Vicious Binocular - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Harper Owens

Alias

"Cheap Imp"

Features

7' 1"

Gray eyes

Large deep scar / Right arm

Organization

The Alliance of Wide Vessel

Emotions

Disappointed

Personality

Wetly Melted

Motive

Disrupt the military justice for a wrong-doing

Bodyguard

Harrison the "Hot The Grim Reaper"

Physical Size

Baby

Story

Additional Locations

The Shallow Grove

Polluted Spring

Indecision Island

Random Events

Crowd Glistens gently

Keg chase a suspect

Bottle of Soy Sauce Strikes the church bell

Deadbeat Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

World

Stores

Mia's Chair Couture

Hall's Sofa Market

Vega's Trophy Ventures

Wolfe's crutch Consulting

Traps

Floor Net

Earthquake of Exuberance

Objects

Chair made of heavy metal

Trophy with a False bottom

Secret Sofa

Hidden Coin

Pen of Exuberance

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s allies suspect that he isn’t quite housebroken

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Amir Hall "Tough Pinky's" Merchant Singing Bracelets
Joseph Vega "Orange Boy" Mole Paper Plushies
Alexa Harris Dead Tired Coffee Bracelets
Mia Kelly Veteran Snowglobes Candles
Arya Wolfe Police Officer Syrup Paper

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).