The Director Welcomes You

The Valiantly Cocky Agent

#4b577f

Location

Cloudless, Hot Italy

Time of Day

15:7

Extraction Point

136 Miles SE

Time to Complete

23 Hours

Silent Negotiators,
I have sent you to climb a Expensive Forest to look for a suspect by the name "Drowsy Yeti". This mission is intelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to rescue our field agent. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A black cat runs past at the Eye of Heaven".

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

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Leonardo Garza

Alias

"Drowsy Yeti"

Features

5' 2"

Red eyes

Stretch Marks / Left foot

Organization

The Bunch of Wonderful Medium

Emotions

Indifferent

Personality

Valiantly Hungry

Motive

Make a lot of money out of desperation

Bodyguard

Johnny the "Itchy Gnome"

Physical Size

Baby

Story

Additional Locations

The Cocky Crypt

Ancient Peninsula

Ruin Festival

Random Events

Softball Is throwing a protest

Midwife Is getting confiscated

Majestic Painting Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers

VAT of Broth Crashes slowly

World

Stores

Emma's Rubber Plant Unlimited

Wood's Workbench Brothers

Becker's Shirt Labs

Cortez's Oil Lamp Creative

Traps

Lightning Bolt

Wall Blade of Virtue

Objects

Rubber Plant children's replica

Shirt that has been hollowed out

Secret Workbench

Hidden Axe

Nipple Clamp of Virtue

Wand of Wonder

Any shield held by caster is ethereal in the presence of weapons

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Victor Wood "Mad Feet" Merchant Whipped Cream Squirrels
Mateo Becker "One Bones" Mole Robots Soap
Olivia Howell Depressed Candles Bells
Emma Waters Angry Television Rubber Stamps
Henry Cortez Dentist Water Paperclips

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).