The Director Welcomes You

Prince, Officer, Bird Law, Spy.

#86fd5b

Location

Balmy, Overcast The Gambia

Time of Day

11:28

Extraction Point

137 Miles SW

Time to Complete

29 Hours

Examiners,
I have sent you to be locked inside of a Bustling Private Jet plane to look for a suspect by the name "Fat Platypuses". This mission is black bag. 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 – "The earth shakes briefly at the Grove of Weeping Willows".

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

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Easton Elliott

Alias

"Fat Platypuses"

Features

5' 9"

Green eyes

Small mole / Right foot

Organization

The Agency of Prickly Bird Law

Emotions

Confident

Personality

Promptly Empty

Motive

Disrupt the military to achieve their destiny

Bodyguard

Frankie the "Moist Whale"

Physical Size

Narrow

Story

Additional Locations

The Pervasive Carousal

Abandoned Forest

Fury Villa

Random Events

Spectator stop the party and asks questions

Storm Catches leprosy

Herd of Chicken Spontaneously disintegrates

Deadbeat Finds gold in the water

World

Stores

Esther's Ring Ventures

Marquez's Hat Ventures

Johnson's Pipe Productions

Campbell's Mirror Factory

Traps

Reverse Gravity

Reverse Gravity of Laughter

Objects

Ring that is glowing

Pipe with a False bottom

Secret Hat

Hidden Spoon

Helmet of Laughter

Wand of Wonder

Any missiles fired at target are affected by Reverse Gravity

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Nicholas Marquez "Blue Throats" Merchant Hamsters Sponges
Alexander Johnson "Dull Brains" Mole Sponges Sticky Notes
Adalynn Price Midwife Glass Glitter
Esther Parker Chief Executive Officer Photography Comic Books
Levi Campbell Frazzled Stickers Whipped Cream

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).