The Director Welcomes You

The Alcoholic Amnesia Incident

#e6138e

Location

Dry, Cloudy Côte d’Ivoire

Time of Day

3:49

Extraction Point

197 Miles S

Time to Complete

25 Hours

Spy Deputies,
I have sent you to the top of a Abandoned Nuclear Power Plant to look for a suspect by the name "Left Owl". This mission is black bag. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to uncover their plans. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "The group finds a dead fish at the Skull shaped island".

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

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Elena Hart

Alias

"Left Owl"

Features

6' 10"

Blue eyes

Stretch Marks / Right thumb

Organization

The Commission of Mossy Neck

Emotions

Awkward

Personality

Kindly Dubious

Motive

Take over a government to please their master

Bodyguard

Roberto the "Deep giant"

Physical Size

Scanty

Story

Additional Locations

The Shitty Carousal

Underwater Reef

Skill Forest

Random Events

Keg Calls menacingly

Box of Mice Evades the law

Odor runs over an infant

Gang Gets their hand chopped off

World

Stores

Judy's Bicycle Market

Moss's Crate Productions

Berry's Grandfather Clock Little shop

Pearson's Candelabra Bazaar

Traps

Javelin

Incendiary Cloud of Amnesia

Objects

Bicycle made of heavy metal

Grandfather Clock with a False bottom

Secret Crate

Hidden Ring

Longsword of Amnesia

Wand of Wonder

Every other day, the target is 20% likely to shrink by 10%

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Autumn Moss "Yellow Cappuccinos" Merchant Sponges Music
Jordan Berry "Red Throats" Mole Bracelets Boxes
Tricia Bauer Chief Executive Officer Houses Bells
Judy Reynolds Elder Boxes Octopus
Finn Pearson Human Statue Sponges Whipped Cream

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).