The Director Welcomes You
Operation — Melodic Beast
#0621ce
Spy Deputies, As you can see you are trapped inside the bottom of a Pitch Black Maze . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Violet Meerkat" is responsible and they sent us this message - "A pool of blood at the Screaming Waterfall". Your mission was intelligence, achieve what you can.
Hopefully you still have that Clean Bicycle hidden on you.
— The Portable Radio you were holding self destructs.
Reagan White
"Violet Meerkat"
6' 9"
Red eyes
Faint curved scar / Right eye
The Bureau of Melodic Digestion
Elated
Potentially Incendiary
Make a lot of money to lust for power
Nick the "Progressive Manticore"
Poor
The Melodic Sanctuary
Crowded Island
Fragility Pond
Store Integrates silently into the group
Bottle of Soy Sauce Calls menacingly
Wanderer Is being kidnapped
Baker grabs a lady's purse
Kevin's Urn Hole
Wallace's Bonsai Warehouse
Douglas's Candelabra Creative
Wallace's Landscape Boutique
Bestow Curse
Beehive of Dark
Urn with a False bottom
Candelabra that is glowing
Secret Bonsai
Hidden Polearm
Pike of Dark
All worked stone within 50 yards increases in size by 1d100%
| Name | Codename | Career | Likes | Dislikes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bentley Wallace | "Golden Ribs" | Merchant | Octopus | Eggs |
| Juliana Douglas | "Small Thumbs" | Mole | Hammers | Clocks |
| Juan Gardner | Cranky | Plushies | Dice | |
| Kevin Nelson | Scientist | Lions | Money | |
| Waylon Wallace | Elder | Baseball | Slippers |
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).