The Director Welcomes You

The Knife Indecision Protocol

#4ab1e1

Location

Mild, Windy Russia

Time of Day

13:21

Extraction Point

49 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

31 Hours

Spy Deputies,
We need your help. Agent Kayden Fitzgerald has gone missing and we believe "Fast Horse" is responsible. They were last seen in Russia at 21:05. The agent sent one final message – "The earth shakes briefly at the Where grass will not grow". Take this Rusty Guitar - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jocelyn Gardner

Alias

"Fast Horse"

Features

4' 1"

Brown eyes

A second belly button / Left hand

Organization

The Committee of Gorgeous Growth

Emotions

Lonely

Personality

Frenetically Portly

Motive

Take over a government to lust for power

Bodyguard

Nick the "Ugliest Griffin"

Physical Size

Minuscule

Story

Additional Locations

The Drawn Tower

Archaic Crypt

Bravery Isle

Random Events

Keg Is accused by the law

Wanderer strikes the ground

Box of Cigarette overflows

Swarm of Bees Is being detained

World

Stores

Stella's Doorway Arcade

Wade's Tapestry Supermarket

Lewis's Globe Warehouse

Fitzgerald's Platter Bureau

Traps

Floor Net

Poisoned Arrow of Indecision

Objects

Doorway that is glowing

Globe that has been hollowed out

Secret Tapestry

Hidden Soy Sauce Packet

Wrench of Indecision

Wand of Wonder

The most powerful wizard nearby vanishes for 3d8 hours

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Waylon Wade "King Ribs" Merchant Television Rabbits
Finley Lewis "Wild Bagels" Mole Bracelets Rubber Bands
Andrew Silva Weakened Rubber Stamps Clocks
Stella Paul Townsfolk Sun Glasses Rock n' Roll
Kayden Fitzgerald Tailor Eggs Quartz Crystals

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).