The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Masochistic Machine

#538dfe

Location

Dark, Dark Tunisia

Time of Day

2:33

Extraction Point

192 Miles NWW

Time to Complete

47 Hours

Eyeballs,
It seems "Short Kangaroos" has gone level 2. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a dollar on the ground at the Sacrificial Hole". We need you to eliminate them, Quarrelsomely. Their last known location was recorded at 04:23. You have a Fluffy Abascus as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Kaylee Griffith

Alias

"Short Kangaroos"

Features

4' 3"

Hazel eyes

Stretch Marks / Crotch

Organization

The Sorority of Full Officer

Emotions

Bitter

Personality

Quarrelsomely Victorian

Motive

Make a lot of money justice for a wrong-doing

Bodyguard

Alex the "Encrypted Bat"

Physical Size

Baby

Story

Additional Locations

The Masochistic Isle

Ancient Lagoon

Casualties Maze

Random Events

Dozen Eggs Is throwing a protest

Bank is loose

Store Is hurled at the adventurers

Spice Box Is frozen into a block of ice

World

Stores

Alexander's Letter Opener Technologies

Tyler's Armoir Market

Frank's Telescope Market

Palmer's Mirror Cosmetics

Traps

Arrow

Arrow of Darkness

Objects

Letter Opener children's replica

Telescope children's replica

Secret Armoir

Hidden Camera

Goblet of Darkness

Wand of Wonder

A viscous corrosive fluid drips coats all exposed rock nearby

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Jonah Tyler "Orange Ribs" Merchant Batteries Painting
Aaron Frank "Meaty Throats" Mole Dolphins Houses
Valerie Klein Librarian Children's Stories Water
Alexander Barnett Broker Candy Dice
Alaina Palmer Physician Pillows 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).