The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Swift Graveyard

#272aa8

Location

Arid, Mild San Marino

Time of Day

9:9

Extraction Point

142 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

5 Hours

Eyeballs,
I have sent you to climb a Abandoned Circus to look for a suspect by the name "Golden Wraith". This mission is black bag. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to stop the outbreak. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The group finds a dead fish at the Snowy garrison".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Heavy Audio Cassette in your kit to help.

— The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Charles Christensen

Alias

"Golden Wraith"

Features

7' 4"

Heterochromia eyes

Stretch Marks / Left thumb

Organization

The Clique of Squirrelly Knife

Emotions

Uncertain

Personality

Surprisingly Icy

Motive

Disrupt the military to control the Children

Bodyguard

Charles the "Broken Siren"

Physical Size

Minuscule

Story

Additional Locations

The Swift Villa

Pitch Black Festival

Fragility Jungle

Random Events

Butter Shipment Adopts a nearby child

Hound arrives in the mail

Skeleton Lunges at the group

Odor Calls menacingly

World

Stores

Bella's Crock Specialities

Curtis's Trinket Brothers

Greene's Sconce Solutions

Fleming's Lamp Bureau

Traps

Chain Lightning

Floor Net of Doom

Objects

Crock children's replica

Sconce made of heavy metal

Secret Trinket

Hidden Blindfold

Chewing Gum of Doom

Wand of Wonder

Target must Save each morning, or his left leg bursts into flame

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Kaylee Curtis "Silver Toes" Merchant Cellphones Soccer
Alina Greene "Plump Lemons" Mole Dinosaurs Photography
Rose West Annoyed Bears Doves
Bella Flynn Spirit Pillows Paperclips
Lorenzo Fleming Exhausted Rubber Stamps Scarves

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).