The Director Welcomes You

The Lazily Proud Agent

#ab653b

Location

Dry, Cool Albania

Time of Day

4:44

Extraction Point

35 Miles N

Time to Complete

32 Hours

Operatives,
I have sent you to enter a Bustling Palace to look for a suspect by the name "Cheap Goblins". This mission is black bag. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to uncover their plans. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "An out of place door appears at the Devil's barrow".

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

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Adaline Norton

Alias

"Cheap Goblins"

Features

5' 11"

Heterochromia eyes

Small mole / Left leg

Organization

The Firm of Slimy Scales

Emotions

Envious

Personality

Lazily Strungout

Motive

Take over a government justice for a wrong-doing

Bodyguard

Jack the "Smelly Zombie"

Physical Size

Short

Story

Additional Locations

The Proud Island

Ancient Spring

Delirium Masquerade

Random Events

Woman chase a suspect

Rustler stop the party and asks questions

Donkey is heard screaming

Drunk skins a cat with his teeth

World

Stores

Daniela's Goblet Closet

Armstrong's Paperweight Du jour

Larson's Sculpture Boutique

Burke's Ceramic Crock Du jour

Traps

Dropping Ceiling

Rolling Rock of Well-being

Objects

Goblet made of heavy metal

Sculpture made of heavy metal

Secret Paperweight

Hidden Sticks

Sling of Well-being

Wand of Wonder

Next 1d10 attacks upon target heal rather than inflict damage

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
John Armstrong "Drowsy Lemons" Merchant Harmonica Children's Stories
Malachi Larson "Plump Ankles" Mole Flashlights Ice Cubes
Gabriel Gill Art Therapist Children's Stories Cartography
Daniela Frazier Dietitian Lions Tissues
Alan Burke Elevator Mechanic Notes Sharp Things

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).