The Director Welcomes You
Specialities Royale
#96b872
Scrutinizers, I have sent you to underneathe a Compact Island to look for a suspect by the name "Two Sea Lion". This mission is black ops. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to disable the bomb. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A mysterious key is found on the ground at the Serpents Nest".
We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Polished Paint in your kit to help.
— The Origami Swan you were holding self destructs.
Owen Pena
"Two Sea Lion"
7' 9"
Gray eyes
Small mole / Crotch
The Unit of Scrawny Rum
Preoccupied
Commonly Caustic
Disrupt the military to become rich
Hal the "Swift Orcs"
Big
The Famous Pond
Desolate Tower
Bitterness Chateau
Reindeer emerges
Musical Attempts to rob a bank
Drunk Catches leprosy
Herd of Chicken Strikes the church bell
Maria's Workbench Specialities
McDaniel's Telescope Chic Chåteau
Dean's Potted Plant Cosmetics
Erickson's Counter Properties
Built-to-Collapse Wall
Extended Bane of Darkness
Workbench that is glowing
Potted Plant with a False bottom
Secret Telescope
Hidden Polearm
Pants of Darkness
An animal species native to the area acquires sentience
| Name | Codename | Career | Likes | Dislikes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rylee McDaniel | "Small Churros" | Merchant | Cartography | Octopus |
| Lincoln Dean | "Blue Scars" | Mole | Slippers | Limes |
| Ryker Perry | Cranky | Teeth | Football | |
| Maria Schmidt | Accountant | Children's Stories | Cats | |
| Kimberly Erickson | Drummer | Tissues | Basketball |
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).