Welcome to the Drawn & Faithful Detective's Unit!

This week on Episode #148

Who's Nervous of the gigantic Ancient Tendency?

For the Head Detective's eyes only!

Give Them Direction

Monsters
The mushy Porpoises of the Ancient Tendency
gigantic melodic Gremlin of Delight
Ancient Mongoose
Villain Motive
Conspiracy
Starting Event
Adventurer's witness something weird happening
Random Events
A Panhandler explodes
A Spice box skins a cat with his teeth
A Deadbeat stop the party and asks questions
A Vagabond catches on fire
Local Business
Jocelyn's Coat Cosmetics
Larry's Flower in Vase Factory
Kramer's Staircase Du jour
Lucas's Musical instrument Discount

Populate the World

Criminal Contacts
Chuckie "black tongues"
Larry "right waffles"
Al "mini ribs"
Harold "Ancient Tendency"
Random People
Ava Sharp
Ryleigh Lucas
Elise Kramer
Everett Carrillo
Jocelyn Sparks
Elliott Lucas
Allison Sharp
Annabelle Reeves
Descriptions
Depressed
Waiter
Dog surfing instructor
Master Distiller
Waiter

MISC Ideas

Magical Objects
Boomerang of Delight
Helmet of Redemption
Secret objects
Secret Coat
Staircase with a False bottom
Random objects
Musical instrument
Cutting board
Window
Brass Replica
Locations
Crypt
Fortress
World
Island
Destinations
Town of Disder Creek
City of Whiteumberridge

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).