The Director Welcomes You

The Generously Fried Agent

#39846e

Location

Humid, Arid Monaco

Time of Day

16:35

Extraction Point

71 Miles SE

Time to Complete

19 Hours

Detectives,
It seems "Indigo Serpent" has gone level 6. They have been broadcasting this message "Clouds develop quickly at the Tempest". We need you to eliminate them, Generously. Their last known location was recorded at 21:21. You have a Clandestine Towel as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Everly Simon

Alias

"Indigo Serpent"

Features

5' 9"

Blue eyes

Large deep scar / Left thumb

Organization

The Guild of Sour Turkey

Emotions

Infatuated

Personality

Generously Chipper

Motive

Make a lot of money to better Humanity

Bodyguard

Christopher the "Invisible Wraith"

Physical Size

Modest

Story

Additional Locations

The Fried Lagoon

Expensive Citadel

Silence Carnival

Random Events

Cauldron Lunges at the group

Gang Is throwing a BBQ

Carcass is heard screaming

Bear Skips merrily

World

Stores

Aaliyah's Cabinet Consulting

Roberts's Landscape Bureau

Matthews's Kitchen table Collective

Marshall's Pedestal Mall

Traps

Ceiling Pendulum

Wall Blade of Optimism

Objects

Cabinet with a False bottom

Kitchen table made of heavy metal

Secret Landscape

Hidden Diary

Soy Sauce Packet of Optimism

Wand of Wonder

Whenever caster casts a spell, an invisible bronze gong is rung

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Sebastian Roberts "Red Hands" Merchant Football Teeth
Mckenzie Matthews "Slow Feet" Mole Gym Memberships Christmas
Aaron Smith Geologist Syrup Flashlights
Aaliyah Gutierrez Physician Cartography Paperclips
Lucas Marshall Old Man Bells Trees

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).