The Director Welcomes You

The Tenderly Poor Agent

#bb0f57

Location

Hot, Stormy Afghanistan

Time of Day

20:33

Extraction Point

70 Miles NNW

Time to Complete

43 Hours

Eyeballs,
I have sent you to enter a Touristy Peninsula to look for a suspect by the name "Gross ghost". This mission is intelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to uncover their plans. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The earth shakes briefly at the Great Shadow".

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

— The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Timothy Alvarado

Alias

"Gross ghost"

Features

5' 3"

Gray eyes

Large moles / Neck

Organization

The Society of Judicious Metal

Emotions

Trusting

Personality

Tenderly Common

Motive

Disrupt the military out of greed

Bodyguard

Chuckie the "Mushy Zombie"

Physical Size

Teeny

Story

Additional Locations

The Poor Spring

Deserted Island

Calming Barn Dance

Random Events

Transport Spontaneously disintegrates

Water Vessel is robbed

Dozen Eggs strikes the ground

Feminist Skips merrily

World

Stores

Jaxon's Lounge Chair Cosmetics

Rogers's Flower in Vase Convenience store

Howard's Mantle Mall

Mack's Hatrack Beauty Stop

Traps

Insanity Mist Vapor

Rune of Paralyzation of Happiness

Objects

Lounge Chair made of heavy metal

Mantle that is glowing

Secret Flower in Vase

Hidden Rapier

Chastity Belt of Happiness

Wand of Wonder

Target’s skin can’t be cut by magical weapons under moonlight

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Valerie Rogers "Fat Cappuccinos" Merchant Soda Christmas
Isaiah Howard "Cheap Cappuccinos" Mole Essential Oils Quartz Crystals
Charles Harrington Exhilarated Oranges Bells
Jaxon Reese Midwife Tea Tea
Thomas Mack Mechanic Rubber Bands Chickens

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).