The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Nefarious Chinese Finger Trap

#ec5fea

Location

Cool, Cool South Africa

Time of Day

23:51

Extraction Point

118 Miles SSE

Time to Complete

36 Hours

Meddlers,
I have sent you to the inside of a Polluted Spring to look for a suspect by the name "Little Seal". This mission is anti-surveillance. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to find where their funding is coming from. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A black cat runs past at the Three Fingers".

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

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Samuel Marquez

Alias

"Little Seal"

Features

4' 2"

Blue eyes

Large moles / Left hand

Organization

The Society of Warm Battery

Emotions

Delighted

Personality

Briskly Breezy

Motive

Disrupt the military to inspire a rebellion

Bodyguard

Jackie the "Childish Wraith"

Physical Size

Shrimpy

Story

Additional Locations

The Nefarious Masquerade

Rundown Isle

Cleanliness Grove

Random Events

Bag of Flour is robbed

Nomad Is hurled at the adventurers

Baker Is frozen into a block of ice

Vagabond Bounces oddly

World

Stores

Lillian's Spice shelf Department store

Chang's Hose Warehouse

Carrillo's Bible Warehouse

Romero's Grandfather Clock Unlimited

Traps

Water-Filled Room

Rune of Paralyzation of Excitement

Objects

Spice shelf that has been hollowed out

Bible that has been hollowed out

Secret Hose

Hidden Banana

Banana of Excitement

Wand of Wonder

Caster is 20% likely to sneeze and disrupt any spell he casts

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Zayden Chang "King Forearms" Merchant Lions Paper
Allison Carrillo "Casual Knuckles" Mole Sticky Notes Video Games
Jose Powers Shadow Jazz Water
Lillian Byrd Envious Children's Stories Cellphones
Avery Romero Animator Balloons Butterflies

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).