Where We Left Off

Current Status

Last Updated: May 2, 2026 (Session 33)

What We Just Did

Session 33: Locked in the World Cosmology

Established the cozy mystery foundation for the diner. Drew on Midnight Burger (Seasons 1–2), Futurama, and Gravity Falls. The world is now specific enough to inspire, loose enough to let players bring their own.

• The diner is alive in some way. The crew can steer it, but it has its own will.
• Something or someone sends the diner. Never named, only felt.
• There is a pattern to where it lands. The sender knows. Players can piece it together across sessions.
• Three seeds in every kitchen point to the unseen sender:
  • Recipe cards that appear overnight (nobody wrote them, they work)
  • Order tickets on the rail with no customer attached
  • A self-updating chalkboard
• Visual appearance and travel mechanism are player-defined.
• Voice rule locked: no em dashes. Punchy sentences. Imply, never explain.
• Em dashes scrubbed from session-0, session-0-tagline, presentation, presentation-reactions, exploration-red, exploration-black, vault-knowledge.
• Session 0 opening rewritten to ground players in the traveling diner concept.
• Exploration tables given narrative intros that match the warm tone of job creation.

Session 32: Established the Traveling Diner

Realized abstract “players choose tone” wasn’t enough. Established a concrete world: your diner is a traveling restaurant that lands in new worlds each session.

Session 31: Streamlined Job Creation

Playtest feedback: world types and tone flips slowed play. Solution: remove them entirely. Job creation reduced from 5 flips to 4 (Client, Event, Location, Urgency).

What’s Locked

• Layered design approach (never advance one section past the others)
• Zine structure (documents = zine sections, 20–30 pages)
• No pass/fail condition. The punchline is the ending.
• The card flip IS the inspiration mechanic
• Solo and group are the same experience
• Four suit-based classes: Baker (♥), Butcher (♦), Barbaquere (♣), Brewer (♠)
• 13 Personalities and 13 Callings locked
• THE WORLD: Your diner is a traveling, living restaurant. Sent by something or someone never named. Three seeds (recipe cards, order tickets, chalkboard) reveal the unseen sender.
• Inspirations: Midnight Burger, Futurama, Gravity Falls.
• Visual appearance and travel mechanism are player-defined.
• Job creation: 4 flips (Client, Event, Location, Urgency).
• Exploration: Red = organic, Black = inorganic. Suit = disposition/condition. Rank = encounter type.
• Cooking: Red = edible, Black = presentational. Suit = prominence. Rank = prompt.
• Voice: No em dashes. Punchy sentences. Imply, never explain.
• Presentation: rank-only reaction table (13 results)
• Session 0: optional pre-play (restaurant naming, drawing, character creation)
• The Menu: restaurant history = dish list, grows across sessions

→ See Decision Log for full details.

What Happens Next

Priority 1: Branding (done)

Official name Today’s Specials and routes under /projects/todays-specials (legacy /projects/chef-rpg URLs redirect).

Priority 2: Apply world-building tone to remaining tables

• cooking-red.md — Edible component prompts
• cooking-black.md — Presentational component prompts
• misc-tables.md — Dish name generator + complication table

These can use the same approach as exploration: a narrative intro that grounds them in the traveling diner world.

Priority 3: Audit remaining em dashes

Some headers and other prose may still contain em dashes. Worth a final sweep across all docs.

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Updated end of Session 33. World cosmology locked in. Voice rules tightened. Branding and routes updated to Today’s Specials.