The Director Welcomes You

Data, Whistle, Buffet, Spy.

#67ce1f

Location

Dry, Cloudless Iraq

Time of Day

5:5

Extraction Point

16 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

35 Hours

Sleuths,
I have sent you to approach a Polluted Palace to look for a suspect by the name "The Normal Guy". This mission is counterintelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to discover their location. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "Tracks of wolves can be seen at the Snowy garrison".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Evil Binocular in your kit to help.

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

London Santos

Alias

"The Normal Guy"

Features

6' 9"

Heterochromia eyes

A second belly button / Right thumb

Organization

The company of Prehensile Buffet

Emotions

Joyful

Personality

Vacantly Beautiful

Motive

Take over a government for sibling rivalry

Bodyguard

Randy the "Gifted Normal Guy"

Physical Size

Young

Story

Additional Locations

The Early Isle

Overpopulated Business

Power Carousal

Random Events

Wedding Cake is being loudly arrested

Dancer scurries by

Crow Attempts to rob a bank

Bard Is frozen into a block of ice

World

Stores

Payton's Rubber Plant Mall

Rose's Lamp Couture

Cruz's Workbench Ventures

Gallagher's Glass Jars Brothers

Traps

Blade Barrier

Insanity Mist Vapor of Laughter

Objects

Rubber Plant that is glowing

Workbench that has been hollowed out

Secret Lamp

Hidden Camera

Goblet of Laughter

Wand of Wonder

All non-sentient animals nearby are panic-stricken

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Cole Rose "Casual Eyes" Merchant Bears Washing Machines
Ryker Cruz "Cramped Throats" Mole Bracelets Cooking
Cecilia Jensen Banker Cookies Sponges
Payton Fox Cobbler Candy Balloons
Ezra Gallagher Angry Cousins Glitter

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).