The Director Welcomes You

The Hungrily White Agent

#be453f

Location

Icy, Arid Malaysia

Time of Day

0:7

Extraction Point

186 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

34 Hours

Ambassadors,
I have sent you to enter a Bustling Carousal to look for a suspect by the name "Meaty Seal". This mission is counterintelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to deactivate their resources. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The earth shakes briefly at the hive".

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

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Liam Torres

Alias

"Meaty Seal"

Features

7' 8"

Amber eyes

Large moles / Left middle finger

Organization

The company of Ashy Disgust

Emotions

Insecure

Personality

Hungrily Purple

Motive

Take over a government to save humanity

Bodyguard

Nancy the "Victorious Python"

Physical Size

Miniature

Story

Additional Locations

The White Festival

Bustling Shelter

Prosperity Lagoon

Random Events

Goblet Integrates silently into the group

VAT of Broth Is hurled at the adventurers

Reindeer Is frozen into a block of ice

Majestic Painting Skips merrily

World

Stores

Quinn's Letter Opener Solutions

Palmer's Staircase Specialities

Stevenson's Toolbox Little shop

Robertson's Candle Industries

Traps

Collapsing Column

Fire of Silence

Objects

Letter Opener with a False bottom

Toolbox that has been hollowed out

Secret Staircase

Hidden Diary

Sticks of Silence

Wand of Wonder

The moon vanishes for 1d12 months

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Madelyn Palmer "Cramped Elbows" Merchant Chili Cookies
Morris Stevenson "Dull Lemons" Mole Essential Oils Balloons
Valerie Flynn Spirit Books Technology
Quinn Wong Judge Chocolate Sticky Notes
Lauren Robertson Hotel Manager Boxes Sticks

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).