The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Broad Brunch

#3400cd

Location

Bright, Warm Brazil

Time of Day

3:47

Extraction Point

58 Miles NE

Time to Complete

36 Hours

Shadows,
We need your help. Agent Mia Perry has gone missing and we believe "Yellow Elves" is responsible. They were last seen in Brazil at 22:24. The agent sent one final message – "A stranger can be seen in the shadows at the Rainbow Mountain". Take this Rusty Coin - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Payton Mason

Alias

"Yellow Elves"

Features

6' 9"

Heterochromia eyes

Large deep scar / Right eye

Organization

The Gang of Short Religion

Emotions

Defeated

Personality

Justly Shrilling

Motive

Take over a government because of a betrayal

Bodyguard

Peter the "Comical Dwarf"

Physical Size

Teeny

Story

Additional Locations

The Broad Festival

Underground Carousal

Indecision Port

Random Events

Dozen Eggs chase a suspect

Soup grabs a lady's purse

Fairy Is being detained

Woman approaches

World

Stores

Delilah's Vase Bazaar

Chen's Mirror Creative

Townsend's Pair of Statues Industries

Perry's Mirror Closet

Traps

Acid Arrow

Swinging Block of Purity

Objects

Vase that has been hollowed out

Pair of Statues children's replica

Secret Mirror

Hidden Frying Pan

Spikes of Purity

Wand of Wonder

The target point becomes a window for seeing into other worlds

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Laila Chen "The Bones" Merchant Stickers Quartz Crystals
Ashley Townsend "Heavy Falafels" Mole Books Contracts
James Love Architect Boxes Acorns
Delilah Ramirez Graphic Designer Candy Houses
Mia Perry Midwife Photography Octopus

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).