The Director Welcomes You

The Scarcely Surrogate Agent

#8daa44

Location

Icy, Miserable Ethiopia

Time of Day

17:23

Extraction Point

134 Miles NE

Time to Complete

19 Hours

Investigators,
We need your help. Agent Jayden Coleman has gone missing and we believe "Drowsy Kangaroos" is responsible. They were last seen in Ethiopia at 09:21. The agent sent one final message – "A thick fog rolls in at the Garden of Bears". Take this Polished Hammock - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Connor Coleman

Alias

"Drowsy Kangaroos"

Features

4' 6"

Brown eyes

A second belly button / Left arm

Organization

The Brotherhood of Mastadonic Subway

Emotions

Scared

Personality

Scarcely Lazy

Motive

Take over a country out of survival

Bodyguard

Jackie the "Hungry Troll"

Physical Size

Paltry

Story

Additional Locations

The Surrogate Jungle

Polluted City

Influence Palace

Random Events

Rustler Is hurled at the adventurers

Sewer Spontaneously disintegrates

Robber Bursts loudly

Midwife Finds gold in the water

World

Stores

Mackenzie's Cabinet Ventures

Sutton's Loveseat Industries

Greene's Flower in Vase Supermarket

Coleman's Hose Boutique

Traps

Lightning Bolt

Crushing Room of Fate

Objects

Cabinet that has been hollowed out

Flower in Vase that is glowing

Secret Loveseat

Hidden Boiled Leather

Club of Fate

Wand of Wonder

Any blade hitting target for maximum damage gains a +1 bonus

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Isaac Sutton "Mini Pastrami's" Merchant Ice Cubes Acorns
Rylee Greene "Italian Arms" Mole Quartz Crystals Drinking
Matthew Doyle Cheerful Christmas Bread
Mackenzie Floyd Cleaner Syrup Candy
Jayden Coleman Cobbler Basketball Toilets

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).