Welcome to the Portly & Tragic Detective's Unit!

This week on Episode #316

The Mindboggler of the Spoiled Tourbus

For the Head Detective's eyes only!

Give Them Direction

Monsters
The Sturdy Sea Lion of the Spoiled Tourbus
huge colossal Mummy of Demise
Spoiled Dolphin
Villain Motive
Control the Children
Starting Event
A secret in the agency is discovered
Random Events
A robber explodes
A Demon stop the party and asks questions
A Hoard strikes the ground
A Bum Ignites violently
Local Business
Michelle's Bottle Atelier
Darnell's Cabinet Partners
Schmidt's Cabinet Emporium
Nunez's Bench Discount

Populate the World

Criminal Contacts
Billy "right fingers"
Darnell "big matzo balls"
Nicky "five lemons"
Billy "Spoiled Tourbus"
Random People
Landon Rhodes
Iris McDonald
Ryker Schmidt
Tucker Harrison
Michelle Kelly
Nicole Nunez
Vivian Blair
Alaina Nichols
Descriptions
Engineer
Animator
Old Man
Chef
Elder

MISC Ideas

Magical Objects
Bracelet of Demise
Polearm of Passion
Secret objects
Secret Bottle
Cabinet with a False bottom
Random objects
Bench
Vase
Mounted Animal
Kitchen table
Locations
Fort
Spring
Crypt
Forest
Destinations
Town of Oakdershire
City of Exoldshire

The Fuck Is This?

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

But how?

The Most Important Rule

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 Up

Give 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.

Characters

90% 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.

Rolling

This 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 Master

Your 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.

Ending

No 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).