The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Comical Boyscouts

#defaca

Location

Foggy, Arid Sweden

Time of Day

20:42

Extraction Point

106 Miles NE

Time to Complete

21 Hours

Snoopers,
I have sent you to fly above a Deserted Motel to look for a suspect by the name "Fat Vampires". This mission is black bag. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to discover their location. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A traveling merchant appears at the Three Fingers".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Colorful Paint in your kit to help.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Rose Osborne

Alias

"Fat Vampires"

Features

6' 2"

Hazel eyes

Faint curved scar / Left hand

Organization

The Society of Important Fact

Emotions

Optimistic

Personality

Willfully Scruffy

Motive

Take over a government to lead a mutiny

Bodyguard

Randy the "Crooked Roc"

Physical Size

Diminutive

Story

Additional Locations

The Comical Villa

Rundown Arcade

Destiny Crypt

Random Events

Swarm of Bees emerges

Amulet emerges

Box of Mice Adopts a nearby child

Keg approaches

World

Stores

Savannah's Shoe Horn Mall

Gardner's Coat Worldwide

Butler's Taxidermy animal Couture

Valdez's Sink Creative

Traps

Rolling Rock

Reverse Gravity of Dark

Objects

Shoe Horn that is glowing

Taxidermy animal made of heavy metal

Secret Coat

Hidden Dagger

File of Dark

Wand of Wonder

Target’s voice crackles with static until sunrise tomorrow

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Chase Gardner "Slow Dumplings" Merchant Dolphins Singing
Declan Butler "Blue Feet" Mole Quartz Crystals Glass
Lauren Erickson Bounty hunter Flashlights Candles
Savannah Washington Mechanic Mirrors Photography
Mia Valdez Bruised Quartz Crystals Flashlights

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).