The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Rabid Rub

#2c497c

Location

Stormy, Cloudless Georgia

Time of Day

14:51

Extraction Point

186 Miles E

Time to Complete

30 Hours

Shadows,
I have sent you to descend into Underwater Jungle to look for a suspect by the name "Yellow Leech". 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 vagrant asks for food at the Painted Sands".

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

— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Bentley Wong

Alias

"Yellow Leech"

Features

7' 7"

Gray eyes

Large moles / Neck

Organization

The Brotherhood of Black Fireman

Emotions

Relaxed

Personality

Daily Worn

Motive

Take over a government out of jealousy

Bodyguard

Jerry the "Hyper Koalas"

Physical Size

Mini

Story

Additional Locations

The Rabid Creek

Expensive Arcade

Exuberance Reef

Random Events

Crazy Man Is getting confiscated

Building Bursts loudly

Bum Adopts a nearby child

Gang Attempts to rob a bank

World

Stores

Londyn's Hose Worldwide

Carlson's Painting Ventures

Francis's Taxidermy animal Group

James's Suit of armor Ventures

Traps

Fusillade of Darts

Earthquake of Animosity

Objects

Hose with a False bottom

Taxidermy animal that is glowing

Secret Painting

Hidden Helmet

Pen of Animosity

Wand of Wonder

Caster has a blood-sworn enemy in every town within 500 miles

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Samuel Carlson "All Churros" Merchant Water Lamps
Maverick Francis "Fat Pastrami's" Mole Sharks Children's Stories
London Potter Librarian Batteries Water
Londyn Walsh Depressed Soccer Socks
Elena James Electrician Tissues Plushies

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).