The Director Welcomes You

Who is Tim Sponge?

#72dc53

Location

Dull, Windy Kosovo

Time of Day

6:12

Extraction Point

188 Miles NW

Time to Complete

15 Hours

Scrutinizers,
I have sent you to fly above a Desolate Motel to look for a suspect by the name "No Spirit". This mission is clandestine. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to assassinate the target. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A white horse dashes past at the Beast's Maze".

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

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Patrick Daniel

Alias

"No Spirit"

Features

4' 4"

Green eyes

Large deep scar / Left foot

Organization

The Sorority of Jealous Greenhouse

Emotions

Scared

Personality

Hungrily Hollow

Motive

Take over a country to better Humanity

Bodyguard

Tim the "Thorough Giraffe"

Physical Size

Miniature

Story

Additional Locations

The Nervous Forest

Archaic Carnival

Delirium Fortress

Random Events

Gypsy gathers near a point of interest

Water Vessel Bursts loudly

Druid Is throwing a BBQ

Renaissance Faire Skips merrily

World

Stores

Skylar's Key Wardrobe

Reed's Candle Hole

Edwards's Candle Creative

Edwards's Pocket watch Logistics

Traps

Blade Barrier

Bestow Curse of Bravery

Objects

Key that has been hollowed out

Candle children's replica

Secret Candle

Hidden Magazine

Cutlass of Bravery

Wand of Wonder

Someone nearby sprouts hideous, non-functional bat wings

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Guy Reed "Big Pastrami's" Merchant Cooking Whipped Cream
Kevin Edwards "Junior Matzo Balls" Mole Octopus Hammers
Allison Wright Actor Ice Cubes Cats
Skylar Estrada Art Therapist Oranges Deodorant
Daniela Edwards Farmer Broccoli Peanut Butter

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).