The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Massive Chief

#6bc8bb

Location

Balmy, Arid Nicaragua

Time of Day

22:9

Extraction Point

20 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

1 Hours

Spy Deputies,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a Bureau made of heavy metal. Get to Nicaragua at 18:01

Good Luck.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Brantley Hines

Alias

"Italian Bigfoot"

Features

5' 5"

Gray eyes

Faint curved scar / Right leg

Organization

The Department of Dank Tail

Emotions

Sad

Personality

Mortally Slow

Motive

Make a lot of money out of survival

Bodyguard

John the "Petite Basilisk"

Physical Size

Tall

Story

Additional Locations

The Massive Tower

Overpopulated Lagoon

Prosperity Festival

Random Events

Renaissance Faire Adopts a nearby child

Donkey arrives in the mail

Ninja is being loudly arrested

VAT of Broth Protests

World

Stores

Richard's Bureau Creative

Crawford's Kitchen table Ventures

Peters's Trunk Beauty Stop

Simmons's Watch Specialities

Traps

Phantasmal Killer

Suspicious door with lock of Fatality

Objects

Bureau made of heavy metal

Trunk children's replica

Secret Kitchen table

Hidden Nipple Clamp

Book of Fatality

Wand of Wonder

Caster is rumored to be protected by a mighty dragon

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Guy Crawford "Plump Falafels" Merchant Children's Stories Rubber Stamps
Joseph Peters "Short Thumbs" Mole Cookies Hammers
Christian Patton Art Therapist Sun Glasses Clocks
Richard Fuller Dietitian Technology Video Games
Jasmine Simmons Annoyed Plushies Fire

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).