The Director Welcomes You

The Hole Instability Protocol

#322db2

Location

Frigid, Bright Jordan

Time of Day

6:38

Extraction Point

100 Miles SWW

Time to Complete

20 Hours

Sleuths,
As you can see you are trapped inside the bottom of a Underground Suburbs . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Wild Manticore" is responsible and they sent us this message - "A vagrant asks for food at the Beast's Maze". Your mission was black ops, achieve what you can.

Hopefully you still have that Vicious Clock hidden on you.

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Ava Bowers

Alias

"Wild Manticore"

Features

6' 8"

Green eyes

Large moles / Left arm

Organization

The Agency of Elegant Snowflake

Emotions

Satisfied

Personality

Deeply Extensive

Motive

Disrupt the military justice for a wrong-doing

Bodyguard

Tony the "Slimey Elephant"

Physical Size

Cramped

Story

Additional Locations

The Plain Mansion

Abandoned Maze

Cleanliness Villa

Random Events

Biscuit scurries by

Bag of Flour Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

Bear Is getting confiscated

Carcass Is throwing a protest

World

Stores

Kai's Creeping Vines Supermarket

Lambert's Brass Replica Industries

Ward's Globe Emporium

Greene's Mounted Animal Industries

Traps

Scything Blade

Portcullis of Instability

Objects

Creeping Vines with a False bottom

Globe that is glowing

Secret Brass Replica

Hidden Pen

File of Instability

Wand of Wonder

If caster is now bleeding, he can never use invisibility magic

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Luna Lambert "Golden Elbows" Merchant Candy Bracelets
Adeline Ward "Wild Kidneys" Mole Cats Batteries
Alexa Wagner Cheerful Sharp Things Tea
Kai Peters Plumber Hamsters Squirrels
Emilia Greene Judge Painting Limes

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).