The Director Welcomes You

The Almost Cold Agent

#cbfd80

Location

Miserable, Gloomy Burundi

Time of Day

13:2

Extraction Point

141 Miles N

Time to Complete

23 Hours

Detectives,
It seems "Wild Drunken Irish Guy" has gone level 9. They have been broadcasting this message "The group finds a dead fish at the Eye of Heaven". We need you to eliminate them, Almost. Their last known location was recorded at 13:05. You have a Light Blouse as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jude Buchanan

Alias

"Wild Drunken Irish Guy"

Features

4' 5"

Amber eyes

Large deep scar / Neck

Organization

The Bunch of Common Bog

Emotions

Hurt

Personality

Almost Moldy

Motive

Take over a country fueled by conspiracy

Bodyguard

Simon the "Sparkling Elves"

Physical Size

Meager

Story

Additional Locations

The Cold Lodge

Rundown Sanctuary

Doom Sanctuary

Random Events

Druid Lunges at the group

Alligator Is hurled at the adventurers

Woman Lunges at the group

VAT of Broth Is getting confiscated

World

Stores

Liliana's Flower in Vase Discount

Holmes's Oil Lamp Industries

Osborne's Pocket watch Atelier

McCoy's Cutting board Worldwide

Traps

Falling Block

Javelin of Fury

Objects

Flower in Vase made of heavy metal

Pocket watch that is glowing

Secret Oil Lamp

Hidden Throwing Dart

Glasses of Fury

Wand of Wonder

If target lights a fire, his clothing ignites

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Nathan Holmes "Blue Elbows" Merchant Paper Notes
Jace Osborne "Stiff Kidneys" Mole Rock n' Roll Teeth
Zachary James Plumber Dice Scarves
Liliana Bowers Waiter Video Games Rubber Stamps
Silas McCoy Judge Essential Oils Whipped Cream

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).