A Blueprint for a Department of Adventuring Capsule Game

07 Dec, 2025

In my previous post, I thought about how I could bring the bureaucracy back into my Department of Adventuring home setting. I've been thinking about the Department as an extra layer to add on top of the current flavor of fantasy adventuring I wanted to run. But I've been thinking about how I could run and develop a game where you play not as those rowdy, oft-violent Adventurers, but the Agents who drown themselves in paperwork, shake dozens of hands, and otherwise get the real dirty work done to keep those Adventurers in line and make sure nobody blows up the world. I really cannot think of a fantasy game out there that matches what I'm picturing, so why don't I just make one?

Philosophy

I've been inspired by what Rowan of The Dododecahedron has been doing with Castle Kelpsprot and want this game to be HUDless, or at least HUDless adjacent. I may still want a mechanic for player-facing rolls, but it should be the smallest handful of mechanics possible. No stats or modifiers, resolution may even be a coin flip. Players and GMs should use fictional positioning to negotiate the stakes and impact before flipping this coin or rolling these dice. Advantage and Impact is a big inspiration here. At the end of the day, this is a silly experiment. My goals are to learn, and maybe have a few hours of fun with friends. I'll set aside any ambitions about living-world campaigns aside until I know I have something fun to play and run.

What do I need?

Character sheet

Inspired by Numenara's "I am a [descriptor] [type] who [focus]," system, character creation will be a series of tables to fill out a Mad-Libs of who you are and what you are good at. Here's a first draft I just whipped up:

I work in ______, but my specialty as an Adventurer was in _____. I am happiest when _________. When I am stressed, I’m prone to _______

The first sentence is more "mechanical", these will be used to determine what hidden/secret information the GM grants you and help determine stakes in action resolution:

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‎ The next set‎ is solely player-facing to help with roleplay, at least for right now:

And that's it for now! These tables are the absolute core of the game, so I'll likely be going back to it and shuffling things around as I go. Progression will be primarily diegetic, but I may play around with the ability to add "I am trained in ______" to the sheet, adding an additional but likely "weaker" Adventuring specialty. This would be hugely expensive.

The Offices

Once I'm happy with the first draft of the sheet, I'll need to go right in to filling out the Planar Office of The Department of Adventuring. This is the Starship Enterprise of the campaign, a vast majority of sessions would take place entirely within the walls of this establishment. Considering the majority of the offices are, well, offices, this should go hand-in-hand with the essential NPCs of the setting. A simple flow-chart diagram of the office layout is enough, the offices are massive and labyrinthian² but Agents know their way around.

The Outside World

The Planar Office is a demiplane that connects to every kingdom within the Global Commonwealth. Travel between singular locations in the material world is very expensive, but anyone across the Globe walk through the doors of the Planar Office, have a chat with a diplomat from across the world, and walk right back out into their hometown. I need a way to generate diplomats, nobles, corporate CEOs, and all sorts of bigwigs to walk into the Department with a massive chip on their shoulder. I also need a way to generate Adventurers to request quest permits, violate regulation, and cause all sorts of problems for the Agents to fix. Some form of anti-canon world would be best to keep the project within scale. Just stick to the tiers of truth, keep your records straight, and use tables and prompts to prep just as far ahead as you need to.

Mechanical Odds and Ends

I'll need to think of a lot of little bits and bobs orbiting whatever central resolution mechanic I land on. Do I want a procedure for negotiation? Once a faction is established in the outside world, how do I keep them moving in interesting ways? If an Agent has to get violent, how does death and injury function? How do the various forms of magic work? Where should I even draw the line between player-facing and GM-facing? Will this even be a HUDless game by the time I finish (if I ever do)? I'm planning on handling these questions as they come up, and structuring my work primarily around preparing the Characters and World.

There is no timeline for this game, and no guarantee it'll ever see a table, but I'm having a lot of fun with the concept right now. If this isn't just a fleeting concept, hopefully you will see updates on a semi-infrequent basis.