The Director Welcomes You
Who is James Snowflake?
#9e5520
Scrutinizers, As you can see you are trapped inside within earshot of a Ancient Citadel . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Stiff Unicorn" is responsible and they sent us this message - "A black cat runs past at the Wizard's Scar". Your mission was clandestine, achieve what you can.
Hopefully you still have that Explosive Ladder hidden on you.
— The Vinyl record player you were holding self destructs.
Iris Steele
"Stiff Unicorn"
6' 3"
Green eyes
Faint curved scar / Left middle finger
The Gang of Tinkling Cake
Receptive
Correctly Jocular
Take over a country for honor
James the "Cuddly Opossums"
Small-scale
The Slimy City
Touristy Shelter
Bliss Acropolis
Keg Adopts a nearby child
Panhandler Salutes the adventurers
Chanting Cult scurries by
Cat runs over an infant
Giovanni's Pedestal Factory
Quinn's Telescope Closet
Holt's Potted Plant Specialities
Goodman's End Table Couture
Collapsing Column
Acid Fog of Oblivion
Pedestal that has been hollowed out
Potted Plant children's replica
Secret Telescope
Hidden Credit Card
Greaves of Oblivion
Caster’s fingers are as rigid as steel while they’re wet
| Name | Codename | Career | Likes | Dislikes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Natalie Quinn | "Casual Bagels" | Merchant | Boxes | Water |
| Bentley Holt | "Short Bones" | Mole | Cats | Photography |
| Lily Fox | Frustrated | Oranges | Video Games | |
| Giovanni Ryan | Depressed | Glitter | Flashlights | |
| Elise Goodman | Hotel Manager | Tissues | Christmas |
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).