Welcome to the Cool & White Detective's Society!

This week on Episode #668

The Mindboggler of the Acidic Liquid

For the Head Detective's eyes only!

Give Them Direction

Monsters
The Scaley Bear of the Acidic Liquid
sizable petite Kraken of Irritation
Acidic Dragon
Villain Motive
To escape their Destiny
Starting Event
Everyone show's up with the same affliction
Random Events
A Pickpocket Pulls on the coat tails of one of the adventurers
A dead animal Is being detained
A Bag of flour Is getting confiscated
A gunshot explodes
Local Business
Lucy's Coat of Arms Creative
Crystal's Stairwell Wardrobe
Lambert's Mantle Brothers
Anderson's Chaise Consulting

Populate the World

Criminal Contacts
Jimmy "two livers"
Crystal "all lemons"
Donald "italian knuckles"
Roberto "Acidic Liquid"
Random People
Alice Terry
Nicole Estrada
Lorenzo Lambert
Eliza Horton
Lucy Luna
Eliza Anderson
Ximena Henry
Tucker Howell
Descriptions
Pharmacist
Consultant
Butcher
Accountant
Electrician

MISC Ideas

Magical Objects
Pants of Irritation
Newspaper of Delirium
Secret objects
Secret Coat of Arms
Mantle with a False bottom
Random objects
Chaise
Flowers Growing
Brass Replica
Sofa
Locations
Forest
Island
Keep
Masquerade
Destinations
Town of Telsdeshire
City of Swantrin 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).