The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Calamitous Collar

#c92e66

Location

Warm, Humid Micronesia, Federated States of

Time of Day

20:42

Extraction Point

70 Miles W

Time to Complete

37 Hours

Scrutinizers,
It seems "Blue Dolphin" has gone level 2. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a dead fish at the Three Fingers". We need you to eliminate them, Uselessly. Their last known location was recorded at 04:21. You have a Dull Blouse as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Hadley Harper

Alias

"Blue Dolphin"

Features

4' 2"

Heterochromia eyes

Large moles / Right middle finger

Organization

The Council of Proud Voyage

Emotions

Defeated

Personality

Uselessly Noxious

Motive

Take over a country for revenge

Bodyguard

Jerry the "Rainy Armadillo"

Physical Size

Minuscule

Story

Additional Locations

The Calamitous House

Pitch Black Grove

Bravery Isle

Random Events

Panhandler is loose

Cat runs over an infant

Panhandler Is hurled at the adventurers

Butter Shipment gathers near a point of interest

World

Stores

Levi's Plaster Bust Bureau

Wells's Landscape Specialities

Torres's Faberge Egg Arcade

Fischer's Chaise Specialities

Traps

Fire

Swinging Block of Obliteration

Objects

Plaster Bust children's replica

Faberge Egg with a False bottom

Secret Landscape

Hidden Hammers

Whip of Obliteration

Wand of Wonder

Target asserts that he’ll die if he stops dancing

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Jonah Wells "All Cappuccinos" Merchant Rocks Paper
Mia Torres "Violet Muscles" Mole Soup Tigers
Ariana Lynch Athlete Essential Oils Money
Levi Marshall Acupuncturist Tissues Basketball
Elena Fischer Envious Cats Television

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).