The Director Welcomes You

The Artist Stealth Protocol

#b3ca4b

Location

Rainy, Dark Venezuela

Time of Day

0:3

Extraction Point

200 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

21 Hours

Informants,
I have sent you to approach a Overpopulated Peninsula to look for a suspect by the name "Little ghost". This mission is clandestine. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to deactivate their resources. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The group finds a random cow at the Music Store".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Dull Chewing Gum in your kit to help.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Michelle Bates

Alias

"Little ghost"

Features

5' 9"

Heterochromia eyes

A second belly button / Left arm

Organization

The Bureau of Childish Effigy

Emotions

Concern

Personality

Madly Gorgeous

Motive

Disrupt the military because they straight up craycray

Bodyguard

Tim the "Chilly Manticore"

Physical Size

Miniature

Story

Additional Locations

The Witty Manor

Polluted Isle

Enjoyment Suburbs

Random Events

Jug of Peanut Butter meets disaster

Spectator stop the party and asks questions

Gunshot Skips merrily

Buccaneer Spontaneously disintegrates

World

Stores

Elliott's Desk Beauty Stop

Carlson's Lamp Properties

May's Easel Outlet

Simon's Bench Hole

Traps

Extended Bane

Compacting Room of Stealth

Objects

Desk children's replica

Easel with a False bottom

Secret Lamp

Hidden Dagger

Hammers of Stealth

Wand of Wonder

The ground beneath caster’s feet turns to living human flesh

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
London Carlson "Drowsy Elbows" Merchant Baseball Boxes
Eden May "Cramped Feet" Mole Paperclips Lions
Parker Vega Townsfolk Mirrors Lamps
Elliott Morrison Pharmacist Tea Rubber Bands
Thomas Simon Phantom Plushies Acorns

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).