The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Damp Cast Iron Pan

#dc7e32

Location

Dark, Gorgeous Qatar

Time of Day

3:31

Extraction Point

6 Miles NW

Time to Complete

19 Hours

Scrutinizers,
We need your help. Agent Ruby Harmon has gone missing and we believe "Bullet Banshee" is responsible. They were last seen in Qatar at 19:15. The agent sent one final message – "A thick fog rolls in at the Devil's barrow". Take this Delicate Condom - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Emma Becker

Alias

"Bullet Banshee"

Features

4' 6"

Green eyes

Small mole / Right eye

Organization

The Bunch of Humid Headquarters

Emotions

Spiteful

Personality

Utterly Sharp

Motive

Disrupt the military to cause catastrophe

Bodyguard

Alex the "Tender Mermaid"

Physical Size

Toy

Story

Additional Locations

The Damp Peninsula

Compact Spring

Redemption Reef

Random Events

Gunshot Skips merrily

Horse Carriage Is throwing a protest

Majestic Painting Is accused by the law

Bum Is hurled at the adventurers

World

Stores

Dean's Desk Warehouse

Hughes's End Table Labs

Mclaughlin's Lounge Chair Little shop

Harmon's Potted Plant Labs

Traps

Poison Dart

Flooded Corridor of Endownment

Objects

Desk that has been hollowed out

Lounge Chair children's replica

Secret End Table

Hidden Goblet

Stave of Endownment

Wand of Wonder

Target disgorges 1d1000 dragonflies

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Angel Hughes "Big Ankles" Merchant Gym Memberships Limes
Ariana Mclaughlin "Red Lemons" Mole Football Oranges
Sydney Castro Journalist Glitter Scarves
Dean Ramirez Psychiatrist Sailboats Robots
Ruby Harmon Old Timer Physics Robots

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).