The Director Welcomes You

The Honestly Early Agent

#6132d7

Location

Cool, Arid Kazakhstan

Time of Day

20:24

Extraction Point

79 Miles N

Time to Complete

29 Hours

Shadows,
I have sent you to within earshot of a Touristy Peninsula to look for a suspect by the name "Silver Seal". This mission is counterintelligence. 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 – "The earth shakes briefly at the Fallen King".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Slippery Can Opener in your kit to help.

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Sophia Barber

Alias

"Silver Seal"

Features

4' 10"

Blue eyes

Small mole / Left leg

Organization

The Fraternity of Cold Force

Emotions

Depressed

Personality

Honestly Chuffed

Motive

Make a lot of money to escape their destiny

Bodyguard

Hal the "Comical Ogre"

Physical Size

Trifling

Story

Additional Locations

The Early Shelter

Archaic Isle

Freshness Barn Dance

Random Events

Baker Spontaneously disintegrates

Odor grabs a lady's purse

Swarm of Bees scurries by

Crazy Man Becomes wounded

World

Stores

Diego's Vanity Beauty Stop

Dean's Desk Bureau

Campbell's Mounted Animal International

Rose's Butter Churner Solutions

Traps

Javelin

Lightning Bolt of Peace

Objects

Vanity children's replica

Mounted Animal that is glowing

Secret Desk

Hidden Diary

Credit Card of Peace

Wand of Wonder

Any magical scrolls now carried by caster are subtly tainted

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Athena Dean "Orange Scars" Merchant Notes Money
Molly Campbell "Plump Arms" Mole Physics Contracts
Morgan Hughes Animator Lamps Singing
Diego Hill Pharmacist Butterflies Hamsters
Trinity Rose Physician Bears Physics

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).