The Director Welcomes You

The Jealously Purring Agent

#392ae1

Location

Humid, Foul Guyana

Time of Day

19:34

Extraction Point

81 Miles S

Time to Complete

13 Hours

Examiners,
We need your help. Agent Marcus Park has gone missing and we believe "Tough Sphinx" is responsible. They were last seen in Guyana at 14:00. The agent sent one final message – "A lone flower growing at the witch's mound". Take this Robotic Bandana - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Karter Henderson

Alias

"Tough Sphinx"

Features

7' 10"

Green eyes

Large deep scar / Right thumb

Organization

The Bunch of Nice Uncle

Emotions

Anxious

Personality

Jealously Shaggy

Motive

Take over a country for fear of the heroes

Bodyguard

Christopher the "Panicky Zombie"

Physical Size

Modest

Story

Additional Locations

The Purring Business

Bustling Crypt

Perspiration Creek

Random Events

Musical Bursts loudly

Ninja Is getting confiscated

Midwife Strikes the church bell

Spice Box Becomes wounded

World

Stores

Antonio's Trunk Productions

Fox's Butter Churner Little shop

Terry's Bureau Labs

Park's Trinket International

Traps

Beehive

Ice lock of Imperfection

Objects

Trunk that has been hollowed out

Bureau with a False bottom

Secret Butter Churner

Hidden Throwing Dart

Katana of Imperfection

Wand of Wonder

Target turns in a circle every time he passes through a doorway

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Antonio Fox "Indigo Falafels" Merchant Glass Acorns
Daniela Terry "Blue Pastrami's" Mole Bells Paperclips
Victoria Tucker Art Therapist Rubber Stamps Writers
Antonio Washington Master Distiller Basketball Notes
Marcus Park Dog surfing instructor Chocolate Rocks

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).