The Director Welcomes You

The Tramp Oblivion Incident

#f9d81c

Location

Foul, Calm Thailand

Time of Day

23:12

Extraction Point

110 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

40 Hours

Undercover Emissaries,
I have sent you to approach a Desolate Labratory to look for a suspect by the name "Red Merfolk". This mission is clandestine. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to discover their location. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A vagrant asks for food at the Three Fingers".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Glowing Bolt Cutter in your kit to help.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jaxon Vega

Alias

"Red Merfolk"

Features

6' 3"

Brown eyes

A second belly button / Left thumb

Organization

The Society of Bewildered Uncle

Emotions

Hurt

Personality

Lazily Irksome

Motive

Take over a government because they straight up craycray

Bodyguard

Al the "Baked Kangaroos"

Physical Size

Miniature

Story

Additional Locations

The Damaged Reef

Overpopulated Reef

Peace Palace

Random Events

Dracula Balances on a ledge

Deadbeat Bursts loudly

Ninja approaches

Chanting Cult Is frozen into a block of ice

World

Stores

Angelina's End Table Labs

Sharp's Spare brick Industries

Simon's Watch Little shop

Bennett's Hose Market

Traps

Floor Net

Beehive of Oblivion

Objects

End Table with a False bottom

Watch that is glowing

Secret Spare brick

Hidden Dagger

Handcuffs of Oblivion

Wand of Wonder

One side of caster’s body appears to be naked by firelight

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Tyler Sharp "Indigo Cappuccinos" Merchant Candles Jazz
Evan Simon "Green Legs" Mole Bells Coffee
Jayce Gonzalez Geologist Hammers Cartography
Angelina Ross Cranky Photography Tigers
Isabel Bennett Counselor Jazz 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).