The Director Welcomes You

The Walk Sanitation Protocol

#dd1c9d

Location

Calm, Wet Senegal

Time of Day

14:29

Extraction Point

50 Miles SEE

Time to Complete

14 Hours

Ambassadors,
I have sent you to within earshot of a Bustling Volcano to look for a suspect by the name "Gross Wendigo". 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 – "A mysterious key is found on the ground at the dry riverbed".

We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Angry Bolt Cutter in your kit to help.

— The Microsoft Zune you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Arianna Newman

Alias

"Gross Wendigo"

Features

6' 5"

Green eyes

Large deep scar / Neck

Organization

The Union of Obnoxious Plunger

Emotions

Calm

Personality

Knavishly Pernicious

Motive

Make a lot of money to be left alone

Bodyguard

Randy the "Panicky Bat"

Physical Size

Adult

Story

Additional Locations

The Fast Pond

Abandoned Forest

Exuberance Port

Random Events

Bear grabs a lady's purse

Ninja Gets their hand chopped off

Bear Integrates silently into the group

Bag of Flour scurries by

World

Stores

Naomi's Mural Properties

Mendoza's Spare brick Consulting

Tucker's Urn Atelier

Riley's Toolbox Department store

Traps

Bear Trap

Lightning Bolt of Sanitation

Objects

Mural that is glowing

Urn children's replica

Secret Spare brick

Hidden Hammers

Stave of Sanitation

Wand of Wonder

Caster hears normally except for voices, which seem subtly muted

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Arabella Mendoza "Five Noses" Merchant Deodorant Soup
Ella Tucker "Left Spleens" Mole Bells Octopus
Cora Dunn Broker Cats Rabbits
Naomi Daniels Banker Dolphins Trees
Nicole Riley Butcher Gym Memberships Deodorant

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).