The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Screeching Crack

#b0976a

Location

Frigid, Humid Mozambique

Time of Day

4:37

Extraction Point

18 Miles E

Time to Complete

23 Hours

Shadows,
We need your help. Agent Patrick Gregory has gone missing and we believe "Junior Imp" is responsible. They were last seen in Mozambique at 01:13. The agent sent one final message – "A vagrant asks for food at the Flooded Crystal". Take this Colorful Lamp - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Burner Phone you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Scarlett Patterson

Alias

"Junior Imp"

Features

7' 2"

Hazel eyes

Stretch Marks / Left foot

Organization

The Unit of Oafish Thanks

Emotions

Amused

Personality

Quizzically Large

Motive

Take over a government in pursuit of knowledge

Bodyguard

Jessica the "Oafish Abominable Snowman"

Physical Size

Little

Story

Additional Locations

The Screeching Villa

Pitch Black Lodge

Silence Sanctuary

Random Events

Midwife explodes

Princess Skips merrily

Ninja Is frozen into a block of ice

Hound Bursts loudly

World

Stores

Aiden's Rubber Plant Worldwide

Sutton's Stairwell Threads

Reid's Quill and Ink Department store

Gregory's Cabinet Consulting

Traps

Large Net

Blade Barrier of Dark

Objects

Rubber Plant made of heavy metal

Quill and Ink children's replica

Secret Stairwell

Hidden Arrows

Newspaper of Dark

Wand of Wonder

Target’s head has an arrow running harmlessly through it

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Allison Sutton "Quiet Heels" Merchant Mirrors Video Games
Maximus Reid "Short Pinky's" Mole Rubber Stamps Rubber Bands
Valerie Duran Soul Jazz Washing Machines
Aiden Graham Teacher Water Quartz Crystals
Patrick Gregory Sad Jazz Photography

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).