Silent Negotiators, This week should be easy. You are delivering a Trunk that is glowing. Get to Chad at 04:09
Good Luck.
— The Tablet of Stone you were holding self destructs.
Leonardo Parks
"Dull child"
6' 6"
Red eyes
Large moles / Left thumb
The Firm of Screeching Hot
Regretful
Faithfully Nervous
Take over a country for a love interest
Ali the "Sturdy Elephant"
Massive
The Straight Park
Underground Business
Bitterness Mansion
Chicken is heard screaming
Goblet Is under a curse
Rhapsody screams at the top of their lungs
Herd of Chicken Bursts loudly
David's Trunk Discount
Campbell's Quill and Ink Beauty Stop
Reynolds's Hatrack Worldwide
Peters's Picture Frame Department store
Arrow
Bear Trap of Disaster
Trunk that is glowing
Hatrack that has been hollowed out
Secret Quill and Ink
Hidden Cat
Stave of Disaster
Elementals Summoned in caster’s presence are horrible to look at
| Name | Codename | Career | Likes | Dislikes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peyton Campbell | "Fat Scars" | Merchant | Painting | Peanut Butter |
| Dean Reynolds | "Heavy Legs" | Mole | Socks | Water |
| Jonathan Rodriguez | Librarian | Tea | Dolphins | |
| David Hayes | Journalist | Attention | Money | |
| Christian Peters | Operator | Socks | Candles |
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).