Welcome to the Ugly & Plain Detective's Authority!

This week on Episode #711

The Predicament of the Affluent Effigy

For the Head Detective's eyes only!

Give Them Direction

Monsters
The tasteless Aardvark of the Affluent Effigy
limited Chilly Abominable Snowman of Sanitation
Affluent Ghost
Villain Motive
Just straight up crazy
Starting Event
Something mysterious happens outside
Random Events
A meteor Skips merrily
A Delivery Guy Is accused by the law
A Gallon of trash skins a cat with his teeth
A crow Balances on a ledge
Local Business
Elise's Large book Properties
Frankie's Faberge Egg Technologies
Diaz's Faberge Egg Discount
McGuire's Armoir Productions

Populate the World

Criminal Contacts
Christopher "silver eyes"
Frankie "no waffles"
Anthony "heavy churros"
Chuckie "Affluent Effigy"
Random People
Caroline Lindsey
Camila Fischer
Declan Diaz
Mia Nichols
Elise Christensen
Elizabeth McGuire
Justin Garcia
Harmony Neal
Descriptions
Chief Executive Officer
Animator
Artist
Chef
Judge

MISC Ideas

Magical Objects
Spikes of Sanitation
Lance of Reservation
Secret objects
Secret Large book
Faberge Egg with a False bottom
Random objects
Armoir
Fruit Bowl
Bureau
Statue
Locations
Barn Dance
Tower
Forge
Crypt
Destinations
Town of Grimsmincum
City of Stalfasthaven

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).