The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Obedient Horse

#bbd0d1

Location

Cool, Balmy Somalia

Time of Day

16:10

Extraction Point

172 Miles S

Time to Complete

47 Hours

Operatives,
It seems "Right Abominable Snowman" has gone level 4. They have been broadcasting this message "An object nearby starts bleeding at the Big Momma". We need you to eliminate them, Noisily. Their last known location was recorded at 22:24. You have a Explosive Bicycle as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Vincent Washington

Alias

"Right Abominable Snowman"

Features

7' 8"

Hazel eyes

A second belly button / Right foot

Organization

The Unit of Kind Game

Emotions

Dreading

Personality

Noisily Bumpy

Motive

Make a lot of money to please their master

Bodyguard

Jessica the "Long Lion"

Physical Size

Considerable

Story

Additional Locations

The Obedient Circus

Abandoned House

Fury House

Random Events

Reindeer Spontaneously disintegrates

Renaissance Faire chase a suspect

Keg Becomes wounded

Majestic Painting Bounces oddly

World

Stores

Cole's Stool Collective

Flores's Toolset Closet

Hudson's Globe Chic Chåteau

Welch's Drawers Creative

Traps

Fusillade of Darts

Ghoul Touch of The Blackest Black

Objects

Stool that has been hollowed out

Globe children's replica

Secret Toolset

Hidden Rock

Brass Knuckles of The Blackest Black

Wand of Wonder

Target thinks he’ll die unless the caster saves him

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Jasmine Flores "Slow Lungs" Merchant Flowers Potatoes
Andrea Hudson "Bullet Noses" Mole Cousins Tigers
Dean Burgess Teacher Soap Eggs
Cole Stevens Master Distiller Rock n' Roll Music
Anastasia Welch Shadow Sponges Rabbits

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).