The Director Welcomes You

The Intently Big Agent

#fe1794

Location

Stormy, Wet Oman

Time of Day

10:14

Extraction Point

191 Miles NE

Time to Complete

18 Hours

Spy Deputies,
I have sent you to descend into Archaic Labratory to look for a suspect by the name "Big Seal". This mission is clandestine. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to retrieve their missile codes. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A mysterious key is found on the ground at the Field of Wildflowers".

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

— The Messenger Pigeon you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Matthew Barrett

Alias

"Big Seal"

Features

5' 4"

Blue eyes

Stretch Marks / Left leg

Organization

The Sorority of Refined Sabre

Emotions

Amused

Personality

Intently Round

Motive

Disrupt the military because of a betrayal

Bodyguard

Randy the "Lively Roc"

Physical Size

Paltry

Story

Additional Locations

The Big Palace

Underground Castle

Sanitation Barn Dance

Random Events

Reindeer Skips merrily

Crying Child Calls menacingly

Transport Is frozen into a block of ice

Cookie Finds gold in the water

World

Stores

Charles's Stairwell Mall

Ford's Tea Pot Cosmetics

Boyd's Window Factory

Mejia's Window Arcade

Traps

Insanity Mist Vapor

Collapsing Column of Obliteration

Objects

Stairwell with a False bottom

Window that is glowing

Secret Tea Pot

Hidden Cat

Handcuffs of Obliteration

Wand of Wonder

All trees within one mile are cut down and stacked as cordwood

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Lydia Ford "Fat Throats" Merchant Honey Soap
Oliver Boyd "Red Legs" Mole Photography Easter
Thomas Guerrero Professional Cuddler Cookies Photography
Charles Hanson Indifferent Basketball Pillows
Weston Mejia Cleaner Cookies Notes

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).