The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Fierce Library

#7e00d2

Location

Windless, Chilly Iceland

Time of Day

2:5

Extraction Point

179 Miles NEE

Time to Complete

8 Hours

Examiners,
We need your help. Agent Hadley Lee has gone missing and we believe "Dull Bat" is responsible. They were last seen in Iceland at 11:16. The agent sent one final message – "A black cat runs past at the Skull shaped island". Take this Evil Blanket - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Miles Daniels

Alias

"Dull Bat"

Features

4' 9"

Amber eyes

A second belly button / Left leg

Organization

The Sorority of Substantial Activity

Emotions

Regretful

Personality

Tenderly Bewildered

Motive

Disrupt the military to inspire a rebellion

Bodyguard

Daniel the "Sore Gnome"

Physical Size

Vast

Story

Additional Locations

The Fierce Circus

Bustling Fortress

Joy Crypt

Random Events

Woman stop the party and asks questions

Skeleton Is throwing a BBQ

Meteor overflows

Bunny is robbed

World

Stores

Mila's Butter Churner Threads

Pena's Crate Wardrobe

Rivera's Lipstick Convenience store

Lee's Trinket Productions

Traps

Box of Brown Mold

Object Smeared with Poison of Fate

Objects

Butter Churner with a False bottom

Lipstick that has been hollowed out

Secret Crate

Hidden Credit Card

Spear of Fate

Wand of Wonder

One of caster’s arms can’t be cut by magical blades

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Julian Pena "Plump Lox" Merchant Bears Trees
Aaron Rivera "Tough Knuckles" Mole Music Easter
Sadie Porter Hotel Manager Limes Jigsaw Puzzles
Mila Riley Artist Money Sharks
Hadley Lee Cleaner Snowglobes Candles

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).