Welcome to the Creepy & Prehensile Detective's Association!

This week on Episode #903

Who's Scared of the sizable Little Vessel?

For the Head Detective's eyes only!

Give Them Direction

Monsters
The Baked Doppelganger of the Little Vessel
sizable Happy Bull of Vulnerability
Little Rabbit
Villain Motive
Leave me in peace
Starting Event
Something mysterious happens outside
Random Events
A Wedding cake Crashes slowly
A robber skins a cat with his teeth
A Amulet catches on fire
A gunshot catches on fire
Local Business
Christopher's Basket Ventures
Anthony's Platter Wardrobe
Ortega's Candle Atelier
Fischer's Candelabra Convenience store

Populate the World

Criminal Contacts
Anthony "junior thumbs"
Anthony "meaty spleens"
Joseph "cheap eyes"
Terry "Little Vessel"
Random People
Paisley Guzman
Clara Reed
Diego Ortega
Eliza Robbins
Christopher Murray
Finn Fischer
Austin Harrison
Laila Leon
Descriptions
Animator
Angry
Veteran
Counselor
Dead Tired

MISC Ideas

Magical Objects
Coif of Vulnerability
Goblet of Catastrophe
Secret objects
Secret Basket
Candle with a False bottom
Random objects
Candelabra
Hatrack
Music Box
Shoe Horn
Locations
Villa
Crypt
Island
Brewing Company
Destinations
Town of Moderley Creek
City of Bridlingcumshire

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).