The Director Welcomes You
Operation — Cooling Gladiator
#11b421
Shadows, It seems "Italian Elephants" has gone level 5. They have been broadcasting this message "Clouds develop quickly at the Painted Sands". We need you to eliminate them, Utterly. Their last known location was recorded at 08:02. You have a Vicious Atlas as a last resort. Use carefully.
— The CD player you were holding self destructs.
Leah Jackson
"Italian Elephants"
6' 8"
Gray eyes
Large deep scar / Left eye
The Agency of Feisty Digestion
Grief-stricken
Utterly Swollen
Make a lot of money for scientific discovery
Chuckie the "Dusty Nymph"
Microscopic
The Cooling Lodge
Crowded Manor
Euphoria Island
Rhapsody Crashes slowly
Pack of Wild Dogs stop the party and asks questions
Toilet grabs a lady's purse
Softball Catches leprosy
Mateo's Watch Ventures
Vazquez's Pair of Statues Unlimited
Hughes's Taxidermy animal Specialities
Moody's File Discount
Rune of Paralyzation
Bestow Curse of Demise
Watch made of heavy metal
Taxidermy animal that is glowing
Secret Pair of Statues
Hidden Blowgun
Spikes of Demise
Eerie and ominous susurrations issue from the air for one week
| Name | Codename | Career | Likes | Dislikes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brianna Vazquez | "Indigo Pretzels" | Merchant | Water | Dolphins |
| Mia Hughes | "Heavy Toes" | Mole | Baseball | Cookies |
| Sherri Zimmerman | Surveyor | Broccoli | Broccoli | |
| Mateo Riley | Dietitian | Sharks | Soap | |
| Arabella Moody | Cleaner | Slippers | Death |
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
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 UpGive 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.
Characters90% 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.
RollingThis 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 MasterYour 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.
EndingNo 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).