The Director Welcomes You

The Smoke Instability Protocol

#bb5ebb

Location

Breezy, Foggy Singapore

Time of Day

7:46

Extraction Point

133 Miles NE

Time to Complete

42 Hours

Shadows,
We need your help. Agent Harper Harrington has gone missing and we believe "The Demon" is responsible. They were last seen in Singapore at 02:03. The agent sent one final message – "A roll of thunder at the dry riverbed". Take this Polished Lipstick - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Daniela Kramer

Alias

"The Demon"

Features

4' 4"

Gray eyes

Small mole / Left foot

Organization

The Community of Fancy Volcano

Emotions

Grief-stricken

Personality

Playfully Victorious

Motive

Take over a government for fear of the heroes

Bodyguard

John the "Calm kobold"

Physical Size

Modest

Story

Additional Locations

The Whispering Citadel

Desolate Pond

Bliss Citadel

Random Events

Rustler Is frozen into a block of ice

Swarm of Bees scurries by

Dancer Is hurled at the adventurers

Bag of Lemons Is being kidnapped

World

Stores

Quinn's Faberge Egg Unlimited

Grant's Ceramic Crock Bazaar

Figueroa's Hose Hole

Harrington's Shelf of alcohol Threads

Traps

Wall Blade

Wall Blade of Instability

Objects

Faberge Egg made of heavy metal

Hose made of heavy metal

Secret Ceramic Crock

Hidden Goblet

Greaves of Instability

Wand of Wonder

All gold within 50 yards is 10% likely to turn to lead

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Axel Grant "Nice Forearms" Merchant Paper Water
Edward Figueroa "Casual Toes" Mole Physics Doves
Charles Jimenez Dead Tired Painting Sharks
Quinn Hammond The Body Glass Rubber Bands
Harper Harrington Exhausted Jigsaw Puzzles Football

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).