The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Wonderful Variety

#0cdf38

Location

Calm, Cloudless Argentina

Time of Day

20:14

Extraction Point

29 Miles W

Time to Complete

35 Hours

Detectives,
It seems "Mad Serpent" has gone level 7. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a random cow at the Underwater cave". We need you to eliminate them, Daintily. Their last known location was recorded at 04:03. You have a Polished Lipstick as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Elizabeth James

Alias

"Mad Serpent"

Features

7' 8"

Green eyes

Large deep scar / Right eye

Organization

The Club of Comical Truck

Emotions

Helpless

Personality

Daintily Eager

Motive

Take over a country in pursuit of knowledge

Bodyguard

Daniel the "Sturdy Bull"

Physical Size

Short

Story

Additional Locations

The Wonderful Crypt

Polluted House

Irritation Isle

Random Events

Rustler screams at the top of their lungs

Vegetable arrives in the mail

Ninja Glistens gently

Alligator Bursts loudly

World

Stores

Colton's Bench Market

Page's Sconce Ventures

Johnston's Iron stove Threads

Hines's Fire poker set International

Traps

Swinging Block

Flame Strike of Cleanliness

Objects

Bench made of heavy metal

Iron stove made of heavy metal

Secret Sconce

Hidden Rock

Throwing Dart of Cleanliness

Wand of Wonder

Target’s left foot can never again tolerate a shoe or boot

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Eva Page "Cramped Scars" Merchant Potatoes Washing Machines
Payton Johnston "Gross Lungs" Mole Cooking Bracelets
Ayden Daniel Animator Essential Oils Chickens
Colton Rose Art Therapist Sticky Notes Paper
Malachi Hines Waiter Hammers Dolphins

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).