The Director Welcomes You

Who is Alex Secretary?

#f08bdb

Location

Windy, Chilly Nauru

Time of Day

9:36

Extraction Point

21 Miles W

Time to Complete

39 Hours

Sleuths,
I have sent you to fly above a Pitch Black Lodge to look for a suspect by the name "Fast Kaiju". This mission is counterintelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to rescue our field agent. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "An out of place door appears at the Broken Face".

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

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Elliot Morgan

Alias

"Fast Kaiju"

Features

7' 11"

Blue eyes

Large deep scar / Neck

Organization

The Alliance of Encrypted Toothbrush

Emotions

Annoyed

Personality

Quizzically Creamy

Motive

Disrupt the military out of greed

Bodyguard

Alex the "Tender Lion"

Physical Size

Diminutive

Story

Additional Locations

The Tropical Carnival

Desolate Barn Dance

Contentment Island

Random Events

Diary Catches leprosy

Cauldron Bounces oddly

Bum Is throwing a protest

Corncob Is frozen into a block of ice

World

Stores

Xavier's Figurine Worldwide

Watson's Basket Industries

Evans's Stamp Set Group

Paul's Butter Churner Solutions

Traps

Ray of Sickness

Insanity Mist Vapor of Demise

Objects

Figurine that has been hollowed out

Stamp Set that is glowing

Secret Basket

Hidden Boiled Leather

Banana of Demise

Wand of Wonder

Anyone nearby who’s carrying open flame is stricken bald

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Audrey Watson "Stiff Brains" Merchant Deodorant Painting
Isabelle Evans "Green Lox" Mole Painting Physics
Jesus Taylor Professional Cuddler Potatoes Notes
Xavier James Annoyed Oranges Soccer
Lyla Paul Elder Clocks 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).