The Director Welcomes You
Mall Royale
#f7cddf
Investigators, As you can see you are trapped inside fly above a Hidden Lake . We almost couldn't find you — Please explain when you get back. All we know is "Short Cyclops" is responsible and they sent us this message - "A roll of thunder at the Skull shaped island". Your mission was intelligence, achieve what you can.
Hopefully you still have that Colorful Brush hidden on you.
— The Tape recorder you were holding self destructs.
Maximus Jimenez
"Short Cyclops"
7' 8"
Brown eyes
Large deep scar / Right eye
The Department of White Boundary
Bored
Suspiciously Chewy
Take over a government to better Humanity
Chuckie the "Mysterious Koalas"
Substantial
The Rapid Reef
Ancient Forest
Passion Chateau
Bear Protests
Donkey Catches leprosy
Bellhop Attempts to rob a bank
Squirrel scurries by
Graham's Credenza Mall
Brown's Hat Boutique
Gilbert's Satchel Specialities
Ramos's Spare brick Mall
Swinging Block
Fireball of Censorship
Credenza made of heavy metal
Satchel with a False bottom
Secret Hat
Hidden Ring
Polearm of Censorship
Ugly thorns sprout from the caster’s cheekbones
| Name | Codename | Career | Likes | Dislikes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vincent Brown | "Four Muscles" | Merchant | Technology | Peanut Butter |
| Stella Gilbert | "Yellow Pastrami's" | Mole | Essential Oils | Flowers |
| Peyton Barber | Exhilarated | Soda | Books | |
| Graham Woods | Musician | Rabbits | Eggs | |
| Sebastian Ramos | Architect | Lions | Jazz |
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).