The Director Welcomes You

The Owlishly Edgy Agent

#010302

Location

Calm, Cool Sudan

Time of Day

12:47

Extraction Point

113 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

10 Hours

Agents,
It seems "Orange Mongoose" has gone level 2. They have been broadcasting this message "An object nearby starts bleeding at the Dragon's Sea". We need you to eliminate them, Owlishly. Their last known location was recorded at 20:00. You have a Sharp Vise as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Finn Curry

Alias

"Orange Mongoose"

Features

4' 2"

Hazel eyes

A second belly button / Right foot

Organization

The Sisterhood of Efficacious Mural

Emotions

Fondness

Personality

Owlishly Lemon

Motive

Take over a government to become famous

Bodyguard

Penelope the "Cuddly Lion"

Physical Size

Young

Story

Additional Locations

The Edgy Forge

Overpopulated Shelter

Dark Grove

Random Events

Dead Animal catches on fire

Alligator is being loudly arrested

Donkey gathers near a point of interest

Dozen Eggs Is being kidnapped

World

Stores

Guy's Music Box Supermarket

Ferguson's Faberge Egg Productions

Hogan's Kitchen table Convenience store

Padilla's Desk Convenience store

Traps

Moving Executioner Statue

Burning Hands of Amnesia

Objects

Music Box children's replica

Kitchen table with a False bottom

Secret Faberge Egg

Hidden Necklace

Sling of Amnesia

Wand of Wonder

Once per day, caster can locate the nearest unrefined iron ore

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Nolan Ferguson "Golden Arms" Merchant Eggs Basketball
Maxwell Hogan "Cheap Throats" Mole Jigsaw Puzzles Snowglobes
Khloe Henderson Police Officer Washing Machines Chalk
Guy Shelton Lawyer Technology Peanut Butter
Amelia Padilla Dentist Deodorant 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).