The Director Welcomes You

The Softly Extensive Agent

#622ad8

Location

Cool, Cloudless Bahrain

Time of Day

19:49

Extraction Point

121 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

9 Hours

Shadows,
We need your help. Agent Blake Blake has gone missing and we believe "The Whale" is responsible. They were last seen in Bahrain at 15:19. The agent sent one final message – "A thick fog rolls in at the Dragon's Sea". Take this Evil Tissues - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Zion Reed

Alias

"The Whale"

Features

6' 10"

Brown eyes

Large deep scar / Left hand

Organization

The Order of Slimy Bacon

Emotions

Alienated

Personality

Softly Derogatory

Motive

Disrupt the military out of survival

Bodyguard

John the "Regal Kaiju"

Physical Size

Narrow

Story

Additional Locations

The Extensive Palace

Archaic Suburbs

Fatality Fortress

Random Events

Procession Catches leprosy

Turtle Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

VAT of Broth Spontaneously disintegrates

German Trench Club is robbed

World

Stores

Greyson's Loveseat Labs

Bowen's Crate Brothers

Stephens's Bonsai Little shop

Blake's Tea Pot Du jour

Traps

Lightning Bolt

Wall Blade of Power

Objects

Loveseat made of heavy metal

Bonsai with a False bottom

Secret Crate

Hidden Spoon

Scimitar of Power

Wand of Wonder

Whenever caster casts a spell, he hears glass breaking everywhere

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Tyler Bowen "Heavy Stomachs" Merchant Hamsters Balloons
Landon Stephens "Stiff Forearms" Mole Dice Octopus
Brielle Schultz Hairdresser Christmas Washing Machines
Greyson Mitchell Firefighter Balloons Jazz
Blake Blake Soul Doors Singing

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).