The Director Welcomes You

The Quaint Servant Expedition

#672323

Location

Cloudy, Warm Monaco

Time of Day

11:42

Extraction Point

165 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

11 Hours

Agents,
I have sent you to climb a Bustling Nuclear Power Plant to look for a suspect by the name "Mini Eel". This mission is clandestine. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to uncover their plans. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A shadow passes at the Garden of Bears".

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

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Lydia Black

Alias

"Mini Eel"

Features

7' 8"

Green eyes

Small mole / Left leg

Organization

The Alliance of Worried Magic

Emotions

Hopeless

Personality

Joyously Big

Motive

Take over a government for a love interest

Bodyguard

Simon the "Rainy Beast"

Physical Size

Soaring

Story

Additional Locations

The Quaint Acropolis

Bustling House

Obsession Crypt

Random Events

Cat runs over an infant

Potato Bounces oddly

Transport Protests

Hound Strikes the church bell

World

Stores

Antonio's Bureau Bureau

Avila's Rubber Plant Department store

Moss's Candelabra Unlimited

Elliott's Pipe Market

Traps

Collapsing Column

Earthquake of Censorship

Objects

Bureau with a False bottom

Candelabra children's replica

Secret Rubber Plant

Hidden Boomerang

Rapier of Censorship

Wand of Wonder

Caster prefers not to cast magic while anyone is watching him

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Vincent Avila "Blue Pretzels" Merchant Oranges Notes
Amy Moss "No Eyes" Mole Soda Jazz
Liam Fisher Exhilarated Bells Octopus
Antonio Thornton Bounty hunter Bears Lamps
Ezra Elliott Elder Television Rock n' Roll

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).