The Director Welcomes You

The Faucet Bitterness Protocol

#30020c

Location

Foul, Balmy Armenia

Time of Day

4:27

Extraction Point

185 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

8 Hours

Detectives,
It seems "Yellow Abominable Snowman" has gone level 7. They have been broadcasting this message "A vagrant asks for food at the Top of the carousel wheel". We need you to eliminate them, Queasily. Their last known location was recorded at 13:23. You have a Rusty Watch as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Connor Roberts

Alias

"Yellow Abominable Snowman"

Features

6' 6"

Gray eyes

A second belly button / Left thumb

Organization

The Task Force of Heavy Sabre

Emotions

Melancholy

Personality

Queasily Bewildered

Motive

Take over a government to become the best

Bodyguard

David the "Pugilistic Koalas"

Physical Size

Trifling

Story

Additional Locations

The Rapping Manor

Ancient Villa

Bravery Tower

Random Events

Toilet Lunges at the group

Procession Evades the law

Prostitute explodes

Wanderer Evades the law

World

Stores

Aubrey's Cabinet Factory

Gallagher's Loveseat Du jour

Simon's Metal chair Couture

Ryan's Candlesticks Outlet

Traps

Tripping Chain

Scything Blade of Bitterness

Objects

Cabinet with a False bottom

Metal chair with a False bottom

Secret Loveseat

Hidden Morning Star

Bracer of Bitterness

Wand of Wonder

Next person slain nearby haunts the area for hundreds of years

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Arianna Gallagher "Stiff Spleens" Merchant Plushies Butterflies
Sophia Simon "Cheap Lungs" Mole Trucks Candles
Alaina McCormick Consultant Soup Scarves
Aubrey Manning Animator Rubber Stamps Sticky Notes
Gael Ryan Broker Soda Jazz

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).