The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Better Religion

#36d51f

Location

Gorgeous, Cloudy Moldova

Time of Day

11:14

Extraction Point

87 Miles SE

Time to Complete

41 Hours

Shadows,
It seems "Mad Gremlin" has gone level 5. They have been broadcasting this message "A vagrant asks for food at the Wizard's Scar". We need you to eliminate them, Wildly. Their last known location was recorded at 10:01. You have a Feminine Wrench as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Jeremy Garza

Alias

"Mad Gremlin"

Features

4' 10"

Blue eyes

A second belly button / Left thumb

Organization

The Brotherhood of Limpid Heroin

Emotions

Scornful

Personality

Wildly Slow

Motive

Take over a government out of desperation

Bodyguard

Simon the "Angry Sprite"

Physical Size

Small-scale

Story

Additional Locations

The Better Carnival

Rundown Sanctuary

Disaster Maze

Random Events

Cat Ignites violently

Feminist Skips merrily

Cookie Is throwing a protest

Gypsy Glistens gently

World

Stores

Margaret's Taxidermy animal Technologies

Lane's Sculpture Labs

Dennis's Mirror Unlimited

Frank's Bonsai Group

Traps

Floor Net

Fire of Darkness

Objects

Taxidermy animal that is glowing

Mirror that has been hollowed out

Secret Sculpture

Hidden Scimitar

Guthook of Darkness

Wand of Wonder

Caster is invisible to females for 2d6 turns

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Iris Lane "Chunky Pinky's" Merchant Sharp Things Video Games
Josiah Dennis "Short Fingers" Mole Cartography Scarves
Sydney Black Shadow Robots Soda
Margaret Bell Plumber Sponges Whipped Cream
Alejandro Frank Dead Tired Clocks Candles

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).