The Director Welcomes You

The Purse Instability Incident

#563362

Location

Cloudy, Breezy Ethiopia

Time of Day

24:35

Extraction Point

112 Miles N

Time to Complete

41 Hours

Spy Deputies,
We need your help. Agent Trinity Ingram has gone missing and we believe "Dull kobold" is responsible. They were last seen in Ethiopia at 08:05. The agent sent one final message – "The earth shakes briefly at the Frozen palace". Take this Evil Lipstick - it was their favorite tool and might help you.

— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Brandon Newton

Alias

"Dull kobold"

Features

4' 2"

Brown eyes

Large deep scar / Right thumb

Organization

The Incorporated of Intelligent Rum

Emotions

Revulsion

Personality

Briskly Deep

Motive

Disrupt the military out of jealousy

Bodyguard

Hal the "Brave Kaiju"

Physical Size

Minute

Story

Additional Locations

The Sadistic Lake

Archaic Circus

Secrecy Lake

Random Events

Keg arrives in the mail

Transport Is being detained

Cat Integrates silently into the group

Procession Attempts to rob a bank

World

Stores

Mya's Creeping Vines Closet

Barnes's Satchel Cosmetics

Gonzalez's Crate Department store

Ingram's Wingback chair Mall

Traps

Portcullis

Hail of Needles of Instability

Objects

Creeping Vines that has been hollowed out

Crate with a False bottom

Secret Satchel

Hidden Pen

Banana of Instability

Wand of Wonder

Target refuses to speak to anyone who addresses him by name

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Elias Barnes "Yellow Forearms" Merchant Fire Tissues
Diego Gonzalez "Golden Falafels" Mole Singing Horses
Emmanuel Webb Funeral Director Flowers Snowglobes
Mya Gallagher Envious Jigsaw Puzzles Soup
Trinity Ingram Elder Dolphins Baseball

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).