The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Recessive Shunt

#453052

Location

Wet, Dull Canada

Time of Day

18:1

Extraction Point

156 Miles SSE

Time to Complete

4 Hours

Meddlers,
It seems "Black Mutants" has gone level 8. They have been broadcasting this message "Distant sounds of screaming at the Stone Circle". We need you to eliminate them, Carefully. Their last known location was recorded at 13:02. You have a Explosive Barstool as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Ezra Richards

Alias

"Black Mutants"

Features

6' 11"

Hazel eyes

Faint curved scar / Right thumb

Organization

The Association of Scaley Hell

Emotions

Scared

Personality

Carefully Verdant

Motive

Take over a country to become the best

Bodyguard

Larry the "Chewy Mongoose"

Physical Size

Colossal

Story

Additional Locations

The Recessive Island

Ancient Port

Virtue Barn Dance

Random Events

Pickpocket arrives in the mail

Buccaneer Bursts loudly

Whore Integrates silently into the group

Thief arrives in the mail

World

Stores

Jack's Workbench Properties

Caldwell's Spare brick Supermarket

Mueller's Platter Mall

Dixon's Rug Consulting

Traps

Collapsing Column

Flooded Corridor of Skill

Objects

Workbench that is glowing

Platter that is glowing

Secret Spare brick

Hidden Boomerang

Staff of Skill

Wand of Wonder

If caster is wearing a magic ring, he’s accused of sedition

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Khloe Caldwell "Stiff Throats" Merchant Chalk Glass
Hannah Mueller "Quiet Pretzels" Mole Water Comic Books
Tucker Daniels Journalist Cousins Sharks
Jack Thomas Veteran Bracelets Doves
Ryder Dixon Professional Cuddler Chili Potatoes

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).