The Director Welcomes You

The Helpful Race Case

#9c078e

Location

Balmy, Mild Ireland

Time of Day

23:51

Extraction Point

134 Miles NW

Time to Complete

47 Hours

Informants,
As you can see you are trapped inside within a Compact Missile Launch Site . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Quiet Drunken Irish Guy" is responsible and they sent us this message - "A lone flower growing at the Old battlefield". Your mission was counterintelligence, achieve what you can.

Hopefully you still have that Bulbous Candle hidden on you.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Everly Chan

Alias

"Quiet Drunken Irish Guy"

Features

4' 3"

Green eyes

Stretch Marks / Left thumb

Organization

The Committee of Tragic Yam

Emotions

Hostile

Personality

Adventurously Chilly

Motive

Disrupt the military for a love interest

Bodyguard

Tim the "Shy Minotaur"

Physical Size

Huge

Story

Additional Locations

The Helpful Castle

Underground Carousal

Power Business

Random Events

Dancer Is being kidnapped

Reindeer approaches

Wanderer drops from the sky

Renaissance Faire scurries by

World

Stores

Oliver's Musical instrument Supermarket

Salazar's Sconce Hole

Yang's Satchel Discount

Fischer's Cutting board Collective

Traps

Javelin

Object Smeared with Poison of Good Spirits

Objects

Musical instrument that has been hollowed out

Satchel that is glowing

Secret Sconce

Hidden Key

Boomerang of Good Spirits

Wand of Wonder

All magic items within 50 yards disappear until sunset tomorrow

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Joseph Salazar "Little Lemons" Merchant Tissues Chalk
Kayla Yang "White Muscles" Mole Squirrels Socks
Taylor Patton Architect Baseball Cousins
Oliver Graves Master Distiller Doors Toilets
Noah Fischer The Body Bread Bracelets

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).