The Director Welcomes You

The Searchingly Gray Agent

#86456e

Location

Warm, Arid North Macedonia

Time of Day

1:53

Extraction Point

27 Miles NW

Time to Complete

3 Hours

Spy Deputies,
I have sent you to the inside of a Hidden Forge to look for a suspect by the name "Bullet Pixie". This mission is anti-surveillance. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to disable the bomb. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A thick fog rolls in at the Broken Face".

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

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Luna Romero

Alias

"Bullet Pixie"

Features

5' 1"

Amber eyes

Faint curved scar / Right thumb

Organization

The Division of Intelligent Earthquake

Emotions

Safe

Personality

Searchingly Unimportant

Motive

Take over a government out of survival

Bodyguard

Ralphie the "Dangerous Kraken"

Physical Size

Microscopic

Story

Additional Locations

The Gray Acropolis

Ancient Carnival

Extermination Shelter

Random Events

Sewer Integrates silently into the group

Storm Is hurled at the adventurers

Odor Attempts to rob a bank

Druid is being loudly arrested

World

Stores

Rowan's Bible Wardrobe

Carlson's Ring Beauty Stop

Perez's Desk Properties

Dunn's Stool Properties

Traps

Insanity Mist Vapor

Javelin of Euphoria

Objects

Bible children's replica

Desk that has been hollowed out

Secret Ring

Hidden Watch

Handcuffs of Euphoria

Wand of Wonder

If caster ingests poison, he develops hundreds of ugly blisters

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Ivan Carlson "All Pretzels" Merchant Sharp Things Cartography
Elias Perez "Fat Ribs" Mole Soccer Sponges
Eli Baldwin Animator Sponges Sailboats
Rowan Schultz Geologist Sticks Painting
Juan Dunn Physician Stickers Jazz

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).