The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Insidious Flavor

#afd34e

Location

Breezy, Overcast Central African Republic

Time of Day

20:56

Extraction Point

195 Miles NW

Time to Complete

34 Hours

Spy Deputies,
It seems "Stiff Rhinoceroses" has gone level 8. They have been broadcasting this message "A shadow passes at the Three Fingers". We need you to eliminate them, Knowingly. Their last known location was recorded at 20:13. You have a Vicious Bicycle as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Audrey Murphy

Alias

"Stiff Rhinoceroses"

Features

5' 8"

Brown eyes

A second belly button / Left arm

Organization

The Board of Ripe Fork

Emotions

Amused

Personality

Knowingly Elegant

Motive

Make a lot of money to save humanity

Bodyguard

Jerry the "Damaged Bear"

Physical Size

Short

Story

Additional Locations

The Insidious Suburbs

Abandoned Chateau

Pleasure Mansion

Random Events

Biscuit Is accused by the law

Building gathers near a point of interest

Hoard Evades the law

Corncob screams at the top of their lungs

World

Stores

Abel's Armoir Productions

Garcia's Certificate Mall

Fox's Credenza Beauty Stop

Pham's Fire poker set Department store

Traps

Arrow

Bricks from Ceiling of Endownment

Objects

Armoir with a False bottom

Credenza that is glowing

Secret Certificate

Hidden Javelins

Targe of Endownment

Wand of Wonder

Caster’s fingers appear to be made of delicate crystal

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Olivia Garcia "Italian Thumbs" Merchant Batteries Honey
Jonathan Fox "Bullet Spleens" Mole Oranges Whipped Cream
Mila Richards Townsfolk Comic Books Jazz
Abel Bennett Bounty hunter Children's Stories Chili
Isaac Pham Phantom Limes Cellphones

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).