The Director Welcomes You

The Prehensile Retaliation Cryptogram

#1744da

Location

Chilly, Humid Hungary

Time of Day

20:53

Extraction Point

42 Miles NNE

Time to Complete

9 Hours

Operatives,
This week should be easy. You are delivering a crutch that has been hollowed out. Get to Hungary at 23:08

Good Luck.

— The Tinder Date you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Maria Hale

Alias

"Orange Zombie"

Features

4' 10"

Brown eyes

Large moles / Right thumb

Organization

The Gang of Worried Death

Emotions

Disappointed

Personality

Sheepishly High

Motive

Take over a country because of a betrayal

Bodyguard

Harrison the "Scaley Seal"

Physical Size

Vast

Story

Additional Locations

The Prehensile Port

Overpopulated Villa

Exuberance Festival

Random Events

Tramp meets disaster

Cookie Protests

Spectator Is being detained

Bum Ignites violently

World

Stores

Layla's crutch Technologies

Elliott's Mounted Animal Labs

Curtis's Lamp Cosmetics

Molina's Suit of armor International

Traps

Insanity Mist Vapor

Floor Net of Amnesia

Objects

crutch that has been hollowed out

Lamp with a False bottom

Secret Mounted Animal

Hidden Lighter

Handcuffs of Amnesia

Wand of Wonder

Target’s voice sounds like the chirping of crickets for 3d8 hours

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Ashley Elliott "Indigo Hot Dogs" Merchant Chalk Candles
Arya Curtis "Plump Ankles" Mole Syrup Limes
Daniel Kelley Lawyer Jigsaw Puzzles Books
Layla Stevenson Meteorologist Easter Paperclips
Kai Molina Scientist Notes Technology

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).