The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Witty Headquarters

#206dc1

Location

Gorgeous, Bright Ukraine

Time of Day

1:47

Extraction Point

42 Miles NWW

Time to Complete

43 Hours

Meddlers,
We need your help. Agent Antonio Brewer has gone missing and we believe "Black Zombie" is responsible. They were last seen in Ukraine at 24:10. The agent sent one final message – "A lone flower growing at the Beast's Maze". Take this Delicate Ashtray - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Audrey Conner

Alias

"Black Zombie"

Features

4' 5"

Gray eyes

Faint curved scar / Right middle finger

Organization

The Committee of Brutish Boys

Emotions

Dismayed

Personality

Rightfully Round

Motive

Take over a government justice for a wrong-doing

Bodyguard

Mitch the "Bewildered Yeti"

Physical Size

Elder

Story

Additional Locations

The Witty Sanctuary

Rundown Peninsula

Fatality Forge

Random Events

Corncob Is being detained

Squirrel overflows

Alligator screams at the top of their lungs

Keg Spontaneously disintegrates

World

Stores

Edward's Oil Lamp Couture

Cannon's Pocket watch Specialities

Armstrong's Trophy Supermarket

Brewer's Portrait Group

Traps

Incendiary Cloud

Wall Blade of Obsession

Objects

Oil Lamp made of heavy metal

Trophy made of heavy metal

Secret Pocket watch

Hidden Javelins

Mace of Obsession

Wand of Wonder

Caster coughs violently in the presence of undead

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Beau Cannon "All Toes" Merchant Cousins Scarves
Thomas Armstrong "Big Brains" Mole Singing Comic Books
Annabelle Schmidt Journalist Harmonica Potatoes
Edward Jacobs Veterinarian Photography Books
Antonio Brewer Old Man Chickens Sponges

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).