The Director Welcomes You

Buffalo Nickel, Fang, Finger, Spy.

#b60db6

Location

Windless, Dry Guyana

Time of Day

15:19

Extraction Point

123 Miles SE

Time to Complete

8 Hours

Agents,
I have sent you to fly above a Pitch Black Carousal to look for a suspect by the name "Black Cyclops". This mission is black ops. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to retrieve their missile codes. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A roll of thunder at the old bridge".

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

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

George Holland

Alias

"Black Cyclops"

Features

7' 9"

Red eyes

Small mole / Left middle finger

Organization

The Alliance of Moist Finger

Emotions

Afraid

Personality

Sleepily Round

Motive

Take over a country to control the Children

Bodyguard

Mitch the "Scrawny Pheonix"

Physical Size

Soaring

Story

Additional Locations

The Endemic Park

Compact Carousal

Calamity Crypt

Random Events

Tramp Is being tortured

Mutant emerges

Hound Is throwing a protest

Mutant Salutes the adventurers

World

Stores

Arianna's End Table Department store

Joseph's Chaise Little shop

Collins's Hose Labs

Sanders's Credenza Creative

Traps

Fusillade of Darts

Suspicious door with lock of Animosity

Objects

End Table made of heavy metal

Hose children's replica

Secret Chaise

Hidden Cutlass

Bottle of Animosity

Wand of Wonder

All metal gauntlets within 50 yards are non-removable until dawn

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Carson Joseph "Bullet Cappuccinos" Merchant Soccer Scarves
Brooklyn Collins "Fat Pastrami's" Mole Scarves Hammers
Vincent Howard Restless Soap Cartography
Arianna May Zestful Football Dinosaurs
Tricia Sanders Librarian Houses Doors

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).