The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Sovereign Dad

#501679

Location

Cloudy, Gloomy Israel

Time of Day

11:44

Extraction Point

48 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

46 Hours

Spy Deputies,
I have sent you to enter a Pitch Black Chateau to look for a suspect by the name "Big Gnome". This mission is intelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to slow them down. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The group finds a random cow at the Eye of Heaven".

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

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Maverick Jordan

Alias

"Big Gnome"

Features

7' 1"

Hazel eyes

Faint curved scar / Right hand

Organization

The Office of Obtuse Cough

Emotions

Confident

Personality

Gratefully Shallow

Motive

Disrupt the military fueled by conspiracy

Bodyguard

Tiffany the "Engorged Cyclops"

Physical Size

Giant

Story

Additional Locations

The Sovereign Fortress

Desolate Port

Expiration Forest

Random Events

Store Is under a curse

Spice Box Is throwing a protest

Hound Protests

Vegetable Integrates silently into the group

World

Stores

Elliot's Flower in Vase Labs

Frazier's Creeping Vines Labs

Tran's Toolbox Collective

Oliver's Lamp Discount

Traps

Bestow Curse

Extended Bane of Excitement

Objects

Flower in Vase made of heavy metal

Toolbox with a False bottom

Secret Creeping Vines

Hidden Cutlass

Sling of Excitement

Wand of Wonder

Target attacks anyone who speaks ill of the caster

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Valerie Frazier "Green Tongues" Merchant Flowers Tea
Preston Tran "Three Livers" Mole Washing Machines Scarves
Sophia Francis Midwife Dolphins Snowglobes
Elliot Marshall Bruised Batteries Limes
Kayden Oliver Optimistic Bracelets Broccoli

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).