The Director Welcomes You
The History Ice Incident
#f72a11
Agents, We need your help. Agent Isabelle Herrera has gone missing and we believe "Casual Spirit" is responsible. They were last seen in Peru at 05:22. The agent sent one final message – "A roll of thunder at the Music Store". Take this Fluffy Spoon - it was their favorite tool and might help you.
— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.
Ariel Watson
"Casual Spirit"
5' 9"
Green eyes
Large moles / Right hand
The Guild of Serpentine Fight
Restless
Enormously Scruffy
Make a lot of money out of desperation
Crystal the "Empty Aardvark"
Little
The Spicy Crypt
Polluted Chateau
Competency Business
Softball Glistens gently
Druid Salutes the adventurers
Reindeer emerges
Mutant Is being detained
Isabel's Sconce Industries
Hartman's Urn Logistics
Jones's Trunk Little shop
Herrera's Pair of Statues Specialities
Poison Wall Spikes
Tripping Chain of Ice
Sconce with a False bottom
Trunk made of heavy metal
Secret Urn
Hidden Bracer
Bow of Ice
Caster’s face is scarred as though slashed by an eagle’s talons
| Name | Codename | Career | Likes | Dislikes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jace Hartman | "Two Heels" | Merchant | Notes | Cellphones |
| Paisley Jones | "Red Dumplings" | Mole | Hammers | Horses |
| Wyatt Alvarez | Elder | Water | Comic Books | |
| Isabel Peters | Soul | Television | Contracts | |
| Isabelle Herrera | Exhausted | Mirrors | Tea |
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).