Welcome to the Raspy & Hollow Detective's Incorporated!

This week on Episode #3

Before Noon With a Gray Tax Visitor

For the Head Detective's eyes only!

Give Them Direction

Monsters
The uptight Bull of the Gray Tax
gigantic Brave Golem of Death
Gray Merfolk
Villain Motive
Betrayal
Starting Event
The Adventurer's are taken somewhere against their will
Random Events
A Gallon of trash is loose
A Ninja Is hurled at the adventurers
A crowd Protests
A Panhandler skins a cat with his teeth
Local Business
Preston's Painting Factory
Juan's Chaise Productions
Kennedy's Sculpture Atelier
Watts's Quill and Ink Consulting

Populate the World

Criminal Contacts
Al "chunky waffles"
Juan "fast matzo balls"
Prince "sharp thumbs"
Terry "Gray Tax"
Random People
Guy Wade
Luke Williams
David Kennedy
Victor Fitzgerald
Preston Delgado
Arianna Watts
Graham Perry
Stella Greene
Descriptions
Shadow
Frustrated
Lawyer
Zestful
Restless

MISC Ideas

Magical Objects
Coif of Death
Goblet of Prosperity
Secret objects
Secret Painting
Sculpture with a False bottom
Random objects
Quill and Ink
Barrel
Globe
Grandfather Clock
Locations
Maze
City
Keep
Island
Destinations
Town of Millcumton
City of Folkerleywick

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).