The Director Welcomes You

The Hose Obsession Incident

#c1b77a

Location

Miserable, Stormy Burkina Faso

Time of Day

15:11

Extraction Point

31 Miles SW

Time to Complete

22 Hours

Scrutinizers,
I have sent you to enter a Archaic Shelter to look for a suspect by the name "Wild Humanoid". This mission is anti-surveillance. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to assassinate the target. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A vagrant asks for money at the Frozen palace".

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

— The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Kinsley Simon

Alias

"Wild Humanoid"

Features

5' 7"

Gray eyes

Stretch Marks / Right hand

Organization

The Sorority of Skinny Substance

Emotions

Frustrated

Personality

Gently Sturdy

Motive

Take over a government out of desperation

Bodyguard

Nicky the "Gifted Griffin"

Physical Size

Immense

Story

Additional Locations

The Bankrupt Masquerade

Bustling Crypt

Imperfection Masquerade

Random Events

Pickpocket gathers near a point of interest

Toilet is robbed

Crowd Integrates silently into the group

Box of Cigarette Calls menacingly

World

Stores

Liliana's Workbench Market

Santos's Barrel Little shop

Horton's Candle Boutique

Cox's Chair Threads

Traps

Phantasmal Killer

Beehive of Obsession

Objects

Workbench children's replica

Candle children's replica

Secret Barrel

Hidden Lipstick

Lighter of Obsession

Wand of Wonder

All within 50 yards are suddenly seated in the lotus position

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Lyla Santos "Heavy Pretzels" Merchant Cookies Oranges
Mattie Horton "Sharp Pinky's" Mole Glass Cousins
Alexa Evans Old Man Doors Bears
Liliana Daniel Tailor Peanut Butter Octopus
Rowan Cox Townsfolk Washing Machines Shirts

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).