The Director Welcomes You

The Error Oblivion Protocol

#021e1d

Location

Mild, Stormy Liechtenstein

Time of Day

22:9

Extraction Point

65 Miles NEE

Time to Complete

8 Hours

Spy Deputies,
I have sent you to within earshot of a Ancient Forest to look for a suspect by the name "One Koalas". This mission is anti-surveillance. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to rescue our field agent. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The group finds a random cow at the Top of the carousel wheel".

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

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Willow Stewart

Alias

"One Koalas"

Features

4' 10"

Gray eyes

Large deep scar / Right foot

Organization

The Authority of Elevated Log Cabin

Emotions

Depressed

Personality

Highly Greasy

Motive

Disrupt the military out of desperation

Bodyguard

Christopher the "Square Seal"

Physical Size

Fat

Story

Additional Locations

The Salmon Park

Desolate Carousal

Fragility Chateau

Random Events

Carcass gathers near a point of interest

Biscuit Evades the law

Reindeer arrives in the mail

Gang arrives in the mail

World

Stores

Isaiah's Stamp Set Labs

Austin's Pocket watch Couture

Doyle's Portrait Wardrobe

Fuller's Fruit Bowl Specialities

Traps

Lightning Bolt

Acid Arrow of Oblivion

Objects

Stamp Set that is glowing

Portrait made of heavy metal

Secret Pocket watch

Hidden Targe

Pen of Oblivion

Wand of Wonder

Caster can turn into any kind of fish if no water is nearby

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Alexa Austin "Cheap Stomachs" Merchant Cellphones Harmonica
Axel Doyle "Chunky Stomachs" Mole Trucks Sailboats
Norah Bush Tailor Money Christmas
Isaiah Ingram Drunken Peanut Butter Cookies
Isabelle Fuller Engineer Teeth Octopus

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).