The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Slow Tapestry

#90f8f0

Location

Sunny, Humid Sierra Leone

Time of Day

19:24

Extraction Point

2 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

24 Hours

Shadows,
It seems "One Porpoises" has gone level 1. They have been broadcasting this message "A shadow passes at the Underwater cave". We need you to eliminate them, Broadly. Their last known location was recorded at 01:10. You have a Clean Plier as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jaxon Burton

Alias

"One Porpoises"

Features

7' 2"

Red eyes

Large deep scar / Crotch

Organization

The Community of Wonderful Shooting Range

Emotions

Caring

Personality

Broadly Mecha

Motive

Disrupt the military fueled by conspiracy

Bodyguard

Jackie the "Heavy Gnome"

Physical Size

Full

Story

Additional Locations

The Slow Masquerade

Pitch Black Isle

Extinction Reef

Random Events

Pack of Wild Dogs is loose

Whore Adopts a nearby child

Princess approaches

Wanderer Is throwing a BBQ

World

Stores

Daniela's Coat Du jour

Griffin's Landscape Boutique

Erickson's Trunk Wardrobe

Peterson's Trunk Chic Chåteau

Traps

Collapsing Column

Dropping Ceiling of Irritation

Objects

Coat that is glowing

Trunk with a False bottom

Secret Landscape

Hidden Lighter

Handcuffs of Irritation

Wand of Wonder

Any gems now carried by target are cursed against him

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Cora Griffin "Black Boy" Merchant Horses Sponges
Candace Erickson "Indigo Lox" Mole Harmonica Horses
Bentley Alvarez Soul Houses Attention
Daniela Bush Broker Rubber Stamps Octopus
Cooper Peterson Hotel Manager Glass Shirts

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).