Welcome to the Incendiary & Sturdy Detective's League!

This week on Episode #803

The Event of the Spicy Waste

For the Head Detective's eyes only!

Give Them Direction

Monsters
The Bruised Hobgoblin of the Spicy Waste
miniature Happy Cockatrice of Joy
Spicy Whale
Villain Motive
Rule the world
Starting Event
Charity Day!!!!!
Random Events
A Bottle of soy sauce is robbed
A Bag of lemons chase a suspect
A crow Is throwing a BBQ
A Gallon of trash Becomes wounded
Local Business
Naomi's Stairwell Warehouse
Timmy's Stairwell Market
Murphy's Wingback chair Bazaar
Williams's Platter Outlet

Populate the World

Criminal Contacts
Jose "italian matzo balls"
Timmy "quiet knuckles"
Terry "cramped ribs"
Charles "Spicy Waste"
Random People
Teagan Singh
Chloe Schwartz
Ava Murphy
Isla Spencer
Naomi Silva
Maverick Williams
Eliza Beck
Juliana Dawson
Descriptions
Professional Cuddler
Hotel Manager
Optimistic
Annoyed
Architect

MISC Ideas

Magical Objects
Notebook of Joy
Pen of Optimism
Secret objects
Secret Stairwell
Wingback chair with a False bottom
Random objects
Platter
Staircase
Stairwell
Certificate
Locations
Jungle
Undead
Crypt
Island
Destinations
Town of Polchesterlington
City of Seaminmire

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).