The Director Welcomes You

The Heroin Euphoria Incident

#e1549f

Location

Calm, Frigid Armenia

Time of Day

13:40

Extraction Point

87 Miles SE

Time to Complete

10 Hours

Ambassadors,
I have sent you to the outside of a Archaic Acropolis to look for a suspect by the name "Casual Elves". This mission is black ops. 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 – "Distant sounds of screaming at the Grove of Weeping Willows".

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

— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Nora Santos

Alias

"Casual Elves"

Features

7' 4"

Brown eyes

A second belly button / Right eye

Organization

The Society of Obedient Wizard

Emotions

Dismayed

Personality

Really Efficacious

Motive

Disrupt the military for fear of the heroes

Bodyguard

Harrison the "Zealous Alien"

Physical Size

Puny

Story

Additional Locations

The Harsh Port

Crowded Masquerade

Enjoyment Business

Random Events

Turtle Is accused by the law

Butter Shipment Is accused by the law

Jug of Peanut Butter Strikes the church bell

Transport Evades the law

World

Stores

Messiah's Loveseat Consulting

Alexander's Desk Wardrobe

Brady's Clamp Boutique

Reyes's Barrel Supermarket

Traps

Black Tentacles

Rune of Paralyzation of Euphoria

Objects

Loveseat made of heavy metal

Clamp with a False bottom

Secret Desk

Hidden Bottle

Knife of Euphoria

Wand of Wonder

When caster teleports, he arrives with half of his gear missing

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Caroline Alexander "Drowsy Bones" Merchant Doves Glass
Lucia Brady "Short Churros" Mole Candy Fire
Abraham Wolf Old Man Bells Photography
Messiah Cobb Barber Peanut Butter Television
Abel Reyes Geologist Chickens Slippers

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).