The Director Welcomes You

The Glove Extinction Protocol

#c3ae01

Location

Foggy, Foul Poland

Time of Day

7:35

Extraction Point

97 Miles SSW

Time to Complete

7 Hours

Ambassadors,
I have sent you to the inside of a Pitch Black Acropolis to look for a suspect by the name "Black Cockatrice". This mission is counterintelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to disable the bomb. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "An object nearby starts bleeding at the Screaming Waterfall".

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

— The CD player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Alan Newman

Alias

"Black Cockatrice"

Features

7' 11"

Amber eyes

Faint curved scar / Left foot

Organization

The Alliance of Dubious Bust

Emotions

Intrigued

Personality

Willfully Juicy

Motive

Make a lot of money in pursuit of knowledge

Bodyguard

Sam the "Sensual Imp"

Physical Size

Poor

Story

Additional Locations

The Short Island

Ancient Port

Ice Forge

Random Events

Bum catches on fire

Lactose Intolerance Spontaneously disintegrates

Gallon of Trash explodes

Drunk Is getting confiscated

World

Stores

Elliot's Quill and Ink Little shop

Saunders's Spare brick Bazaar

Fields's Ring Labs

Hansen's Bell Mall

Traps

Large Net

Blade Barrier of Extinction

Objects

Quill and Ink that has been hollowed out

Ring children's replica

Secret Spare brick

Hidden Sticks

Collar of Extinction

Wand of Wonder

Blades seem cumbersome and awkward while the target wields them

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Evelyn Saunders "Nice Hearts" Merchant Notes Basketball
Nicholas Fields "Short Brains" Mole Candles Rock n' Roll
Arabella Norris Banker Soccer Water
Elliot Henderson Accountant Jigsaw Puzzles Water
Kayden Hansen Headhunter Houses 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).