Welcome to the Hissing & Egregious Detective's Society!

This week on Episode #639

The Hunt of the Raspy Flame

For the Head Detective's eyes only!

Give Them Direction

Monsters
The petite Porpoises of the Raspy Flame
colossal Wet Golem of Calamity
Raspy Hobgoblin
Villain Motive
Destruction
Starting Event
The Adventurer's are taken somewhere against their will
Random Events
A Odor Attempts to rob a bank
A nearby gas tank Bursts loudly
A bear strikes the ground
A Carcass Spontaneously disintegrates
Local Business
Miguel's Platter Couture
Timmy's End Table Worldwide
Willis's Brass Replica Brothers
Brown's Oil Lamp Little shop

Populate the World

Criminal Contacts
Roberto "cheap muscles"
Timmy "indigo Pretzels"
Roberto "stiff arms"
Charles "Raspy Flame"
Random People
Vivian Gregory
Avery Henderson
Emery Willis
Samantha Vega
Miguel Dean
Audrey Brown
Grant Carlson
Zayden Francis
Descriptions
Musician
Electrician
Veteran
Ghost
Shadow

MISC Ideas

Magical Objects
Axe of Calamity
Spikes of Sanitation
Secret objects
Secret Platter
Brass Replica with a False bottom
Random objects
Oil Lamp
Diary
Hanging Birdcage
Musical instrument
Locations
Area
Suburbs
Area
Pond
Destinations
Town of Heathconsland
City of Saxtrincum

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).