The Director Welcomes You
The Pizza Skill Incident
#e76bf5
Operatives, I have sent you to within earshot of a Compact Villa to look for a suspect by the name "The Gnome". This mission is black ops. Their recent activity is concerning and we need you to rescue our field agent. We don't know much about their goals but we've intercepted this cryptic message – "A vagrant asks for food at the Frozen palace".
We're low budget this mission – I've packed a Sharp Toy in your kit to help.
— The iPod you were holding self destructs.
Robert Dunn
"The Gnome"
5' 7"
Amber eyes
Small mole / Left thumb
The Firm of Adorable Fact
Stunned
Delightfully Late
Disrupt the military for sibling rivalry
George the "Obnoxious Cat"
Baby
The Gray Forest
Abandoned Acropolis
Calamity House
Bear Crashes slowly
Tramp Is being tortured
Alligator Glistens gently
Vagrant Becomes wounded
Abel's Satchel Couture
Franklin's Lipstick Collective
Sherman's Vanity Convenience store
Owen's Candlesticks Atelier
Acid Arrow
Hail of Needles of Skill
Satchel made of heavy metal
Vanity that is glowing
Secret Lipstick
Hidden Diary
Polearm of Skill
Caster’s tongue is invisible during daylight hours
| Name | Codename | Career | Likes | Dislikes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Katherine Franklin | "Italian Knuckles" | Merchant | Drinking | Ice Cubes |
| Candace Sherman | "Green Arms" | Mole | Sharp Things | Cooking |
| Brooke Hanson | Bruised | Boxes | Contracts | |
| Abel Powers | Demon | Robots | Video Games | |
| Finn Owen | Professional Cuddler | Jazz | Bracelets |
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).