Welcome to the Round & Bumpy Detective's Union!

This week on Episode #890

The Clan of the Uptight Gun

For the Head Detective's eyes only!

Give Them Direction

Monsters
The defeated Bear of the Uptight Gun
Towering deep Wraith of Obsession
Uptight Ghost
Villain Motive
Dishonor
Starting Event
Someone is already inside the agency
Random Events
A pack of wild dogs skins a cat with his teeth
A Goblet Is being detained
A Spectator Balances on a ledge
A crazy man Catches leprosy
Local Business
Molly's Globe Beauty Stop
Frankie's Rubber Plant Labs
Webb's Ring Labs
Powell's Taxidermy animal International

Populate the World

Criminal Contacts
Terry "bullet arms"
Frankie "white boy"
Anthony "bullet tongues"
Prince "Uptight Gun"
Random People
Lauren Rice
Bennett Ramos
Eleanor Webb
Josiah Beck
Molly Tran
Eliza Powell
Candace Carlson
Audrey Chang
Descriptions
Headhunter
Actor
Surgeon
The Body
Hairdresser

MISC Ideas

Magical Objects
Javelins of Obsession
Coif of Dark
Secret objects
Secret Globe
Ring with a False bottom
Random objects
Taxidermy animal
Potted Plant
Letter Opener
End Table
Locations
Creek
World
Pond
Festival
Destinations
Town of Bichester Springs
City of Edenconsside

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).