The Director Welcomes You

Operation — Nutritious Serf

#291b00

Location

Gloomy, Balmy Libya

Time of Day

2:24

Extraction Point

177 Miles E

Time to Complete

9 Hours

Scrutinizers,
It seems "Chunky Roc" has gone level 4. They have been broadcasting this message "A lone flower growing at the Where grass will not grow". We need you to eliminate them, Knottily. Their last known location was recorded at 04:23. You have a Polished Coin as a last resort. Use carefully.

— The iPod you were holding self destructs.

The Villain Dossier

Name

Steven Hodges

Alias

"Chunky Roc"

Features

6' 5"

Red eyes

A second belly button / Neck

Organization

The Sorority of Noxious Orifice

Emotions

Disillusioned

Personality

Knottily Panicky

Motive

Take over a government to become rich

Bodyguard

Ralphie the "Sparkling child"

Physical Size

Colossal

Story

Additional Locations

The Nutritious Isle

Ancient Lagoon

Darkness Palace

Random Events

Soup gathers near a point of interest

Cauldron Protests

Chicken Is accused by the law

Vagabond is loose

World

Stores

Cora's Fruit Bowl Unlimited

Barker's Window Department store

Norman's Pedestal Outlet

Erickson's Sculpture Discount

Traps

Ice lock

Earthquake of Bliss

Objects

Fruit Bowl that is glowing

Pedestal that has been hollowed out

Secret Window

Hidden Mace

Pen of Bliss

Wand of Wonder

Target believes that he can’t be harmed by a fall from any height

People

Name Codename Career Likes Dislikes
Brianna Barker "Five Feet" Merchant Flashlights Limes
Nicholas Norman "Junior Throats" Mole Cats Acorns
Valerie Carroll Plumber Cookies Attention
Cora Nelson Townsfolk Notes Tea
Violet Erickson Dog surfing instructor Technology Money

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).