The Director Welcomes You

The Extended Ladybug Commission

#141a09

Location

Dark, Chilly Lithuania

Time of Day

11:37

Extraction Point

69 Miles SWW

Time to Complete

47 Hours

Undercover Emissaries,
I have sent you to within a Touristy Water Park to look for a suspect by the name "Slow Elves". This mission is counterintelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to stop the outbreak. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "Tracks of wolves can be seen at the old bridge".

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

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Ellie Nichols

Alias

"Slow Elves"

Features

7' 10"

Heterochromia eyes

A second belly button / Left thumb

Organization

The Association of Damaged Desire

Emotions

Guilty

Personality

Arrogantly Future

Motive

Make a lot of money to save humanity

Bodyguard

Donald the "Victorious Drunken Irish Guy"

Physical Size

Microscopic

Story

Additional Locations

The Extended Isle

Compact Reef

Imperfection Lodge

Random Events

Meteor Balances on a ledge

Reindeer drops from the sky

Potato Calls menacingly

Storm Crashes slowly

World

Stores

Delilah's Painting Cosmetics

Soto's Candelabra Solutions

Harvey's Bible Du jour

Ayala's Suit of armor International

Traps

Poison Dart

Ceiling Pendulum of Mania

Objects

Painting with a False bottom

Bible that is glowing

Secret Candelabra

Hidden Spikes

Coin of Mania

Wand of Wonder

If caster is wearing a magic ring, he founds a bizarre cult

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Ruby Soto "Golden Livers" Merchant Basketball Chili
Zoe Harvey "White Ankles" Mole Acorns Octopus
Audrey Haynes Artist Quartz Crystals Rocks
Delilah Harris Angry Physics Lions
Madison Ayala Drunken Sharp Things Doors

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).