Welcome to the Thankful & Fried Detective's Unit!

This week on Episode #216

badonkadonk! It's the Rhythmic Tail of Imperfection

For the Head Detective's eyes only!

Give Them Direction

Monsters
The magnificent Eel of the Rhythmic Tail
considerable ugliest giant of Imperfection
Rhythmic Griffin
Villain Motive
Conspiracy
Starting Event
The Adventurer's are taken somewhere against their will
Random Events
A chunk of beef Bursts loudly
A Bag of lemons Glistens gently
A Wanderer is being loudly arrested
A crazy man Protests
Local Business
Kinsley's Window Brothers
Nicky's Sconce Outlet
Gibbs's Pair of Statues Productions
Mack's End Table Industries

Populate the World

Criminal Contacts
Larry "orange lox"
Nicky "short hearts"
Johnny "yellow ribs"
Chuckie "Rhythmic Tail"
Random People
Chase Horton
Elijah Fields
Emily Gibbs
Maya White
Kinsley Hughes
Kimberly Mack
Ivan Montgomery
Arianna Conner
Descriptions
Psychiatrist
Exhilarated
Chef
Bruised
Electrician

MISC Ideas

Magical Objects
Polearm of Imperfection
Lighter of Delirium
Secret objects
Secret Window
Pair of Statues with a False bottom
Random objects
End Table
Coat
Butter Churner
Large book
Locations
Villa
Lodge
Grove
World
Destinations
Town of Bottesmelhaven
City of Cumumber kingdom

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).