The Director Welcomes You

The Death Instability Protocol

#e0e865

Location

Windy, Mild Madagascar

Time of Day

0:38

Extraction Point

186 Miles SSE

Time to Complete

31 Hours

Meddlers,
It seems "Stiff Fairy" has gone level 6. They have been broadcasting this message "An object nearby starts bleeding at the Grey Hollow". We need you to eliminate them, Rightfully. Their last known location was recorded at 04:14. You have a Slippery Sun Lotion as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Nicholas Gregory

Alias

"Stiff Fairy"

Features

7' 4"

Hazel eyes

Stretch Marks / Right arm

Organization

The Board of Chunky Cheese

Emotions

Aroused

Personality

Rightfully Puny

Motive

Take over a government to escape their destiny

Bodyguard

Al the "Mastadonic Koalas"

Physical Size

Baby

Story

Additional Locations

The Efficacious Carnival

Bustling Barn Dance

Demise Mansion

Random Events

Bottle of Soy Sauce Is frozen into a block of ice

Beggar Protests

Spice Box Salutes the adventurers

Gunshot overflows

World

Stores

Oliver's Mural Little shop

Evans's Figurine Couture

Hardy's Drawers Ventures

Wang's Sculpture Warehouse

Traps

Fireball

Water-Filled Room of Instability

Objects

Mural children's replica

Drawers that has been hollowed out

Secret Figurine

Hidden Necklace

Blindfold of Instability

Wand of Wonder

Triumphant fanfare fills the air for 1d6 turns

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Hadley Evans "Left Pretzels" Merchant Basketball Photography
Jason Hardy "Violet Hands" Mole Football Fire
Anna Lynch Butcher Painting Whipped Cream
Oliver Stephens Master Distiller Rabbits Sticky Notes
Ryan Wang Drunken Trees Lipstick

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).