Welcome to the Worried & Vast Detective's Task Force!

This week on Episode #431

At Supper With a Prominent Thepope Bump In The Night

For the Head Detective's eyes only!

Give Them Direction

Monsters
The heavy Kaiju of the Prominent Thepope
trifling fat Seal of Indecision
Prominent Porpoises
Villain Motive
To better Humanity
Starting Event
Charity Day!!!!!
Random Events
A beggar Ignites violently
A robber overflows
A Alligator Adopts a nearby child
A Carcass Evades the law
Local Business
Maya's Coat of Arms Convenience store
Chuckie's Shirt Bureau
Washington's Chair Convenience store
Haynes's Globe Arcade

Populate the World

Criminal Contacts
Harrison "heavy tongues"
Chuckie "violet pinky's"
Larry "dull brains"
Harold "Prominent Thepope"
Random People
Jace Weber
Naomi Rios
Michelle Washington
Xavier Rojas
Maya Haynes
Mila Haynes
Kaleb Kennedy
Carson Berry
Descriptions
Sad
Chef
Old Man
Consultant
Weakened

MISC Ideas

Magical Objects
Javelins of Indecision
File of Calamity
Secret objects
Secret Coat of Arms
Chair with a False bottom
Random objects
Globe
Musical instrument
Fire poker set
Clamp
Locations
Crypt
Castle
Carousal
Villa
Destinations
Town of Pockcons Creek
City of Grimsdeshire

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).