The Director Welcomes You

Bubble, System, Space, Spy.

#92a936

Location

Dull, Calm Austria

Time of Day

24:34

Extraction Point

50 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

37 Hours

Informants,
I have sent you to within a Polluted Motel to look for a suspect by the name "Gross starfish". This mission is counterintelligence. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to slow them down. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "An object nearby starts bleeding at the Dead Forest".

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

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Gavin Estrada

Alias

"Gross starfish"

Features

5' 11"

Brown eyes

A second belly button / Left foot

Organization

The Task Force of Deafening Space

Emotions

Distrusting

Personality

Frightfully Petulant

Motive

Take over a country to save humanity

Bodyguard

Johnny the "Constipated Owlman"

Physical Size

Small-scale

Story

Additional Locations

The Pre-Pubescent Arcade

Expensive Mansion

Casualties Barn Dance

Random Events

Majestic Painting is being loudly arrested

Amulet Is being detained

Demon Gets their hand chopped off

Vagabond Protests

World

Stores

Sawyer's Glass Jars Hole

Acosta's Sofa Bureau

Garza's Crock Logistics

Day's Vanity Cosmetics

Traps

Extended Bane

Lightning Bolt of Fury

Objects

Glass Jars with a False bottom

Crock children's replica

Secret Sofa

Hidden Katana

Lipstick of Fury

Wand of Wonder

Target and nearest zombie exchange bodies

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Andrew Acosta "Chunky Cheesecakes" Merchant Chocolate Comic Books
Amaya Garza "Indigo Dumplings" Mole Oranges Coffee
Brody Saunders Intoxicated Singing Cats
Sawyer Santiago Psychiatrist Lamps Music
Mariah Day Bruised Whipped Cream Tissues

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).