Welcome to the Didactic & Hissing Detective's Fraternity!

This week on Episode #44

Who's Nervous of the Big Recessive Donkey?

For the Head Detective's eyes only!

Give Them Direction

Monsters
The Holy Meerkat of the Recessive Donkey
Big Recessive Owl of Grave Consequences
Recessive Succubus
Villain Motive
Grief and loss
Starting Event
A secret in the agency is discovered
Random Events
A German trench club meets disaster
A Bum Is frozen into a block of ice
A Pickpocket Is under a curse
A Musical Ignites violently
Local Business
Levi's Mounted Animal Unlimited
Jackie's Coat Convenience store
Maruska's Wingback chair Arcade
Lee's Flower in Vase Chic Chåteau

Populate the World

Criminal Contacts
Bobby "silver hot Dogs"
Jackie "red tongues"
ralphie "cramped dumplings"
ralphie "Recessive Donkey"
Random People
William Rice
Wyatt Barker
Jasmine Maruska
Penelope Szmit
Levi Klein
Elise Lee
Mila Wade
Leah Jacobs
Descriptions
Electrician
Master Distiller
Stressed
Townsfolk
Soul

MISC Ideas

Magical Objects
Pike of Grave Consequences
Notebook of Disaster
Secret objects
Secret Mounted Animal
Wingback chair with a False bottom
Random objects
Flower in Vase
Mantle
Hose
Toolset
Locations
Zone
Jungle
Stronghold
Circus
Destinations
Town of Eardewich
City of Worthumberness

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).