The Director Welcomes You

The Whistle Vulnerability Protocol

#700519

Location

Wet, Chilly Equatorial Guinea

Time of Day

18:35

Extraction Point

44 Miles NE

Time to Complete

20 Hours

Operatives,
It seems "Casual Bigfoot" has gone level 8. They have been broadcasting this message "A thick fog rolls in at the giants footsteps". We need you to eliminate them, Justly. Their last known location was recorded at 22:04. You have a Light File as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Ellie Howard

Alias

"Casual Bigfoot"

Features

6' 6"

Brown eyes

Large moles / Right arm

Organization

The Agency of Agreeable Sawdust

Emotions

Rageful

Personality

Justly Rotten

Motive

Take over a country fueled by conspiracy

Bodyguard

John the "Horny Banshee"

Physical Size

Substantial

Story

Additional Locations

The Didactic Villa

Bustling Carousal

Well-being Island

Random Events

Reindeer skins a cat with his teeth

Soup Is accused by the law

Amulet runs over an infant

Majestic Painting meets disaster

World

Stores

Zoe's Skeletal Animal International

Gregory's Bible Labs

Hodges's Butter Churner Little shop

Bishop's Stairwell Closet

Traps

Poison Needle

Portcullis of Vulnerability

Objects

Skeletal Animal children's replica

Butter Churner that is glowing

Secret Bible

Hidden Sling

Polearm of Vulnerability

Wand of Wonder

Caster attracts zealous sycophants wherever he goes

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Aiden Gregory "Stiff Knuckles" Merchant Sponges Limes
Aurora Hodges "Casual Falafels" Mole Toilets Flowers
Callie Riley Shadow Soccer Mirrors
Zoe Pratt Hotel Manager Doors Octopus
Gabriella Bishop Soul Painting Attention

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).