Various tabletop stuff not deserving its own thread

[sheet]

Thanks to my older brother, Goldbox was my introduction to AD&D. The 3.5 books with the cool "tome" theming were the only time I picked up the D&D books to look through them at the bookstore. I was tempted, but I didn't buy any (no friends were into it), but having the central theme and appearance uniting each book, much like the Goldbox games, was undoubtedly good marketing.

Why would I pick up a generic looking dragon illustration cover D&D book when it looks like a dozen romance novels nearby with the same style of cover?

[DemoGraph]

Blue of course!

That timmy-jimmy-whatshisnammy marketing slop in MTG never made sense to me. Combo players are sophisticated core audience of the game engine, everyone else is periphery. If you cater to anyone but core, you're busy catering to a product, not the game. This is absolutely ok, of course. What is not okay is to pretend that you're busy developing the game.

[Kalarion]

What's HQ's opinion of solo RPGs, like Barbarian Prince?

This is harder than playing with a group. You need to be both a GM and a player, plus you need to be able to adapt the system, if it is designed for group play, for solo RP, which also requires certain knowledge and understanding, for example, how to play someone else's campaign and not spoil everything for yourself while reading the book for it during the playthrough. But overall, it is an solid option. Especially if we are talking about journalling games. With the advent of AI, keeping tables, tracking the hero's condition, etc., is many times easier.

Failing reading comprehension at the most basic level. He was talking about games designed for a single player, you ******* ****-souled ******. YWNBAH. Get out.

[enisey]

What's HQ's opinion of solo RPGs, like Barbarian Prince?

This is harder than playing with a group. You need to be both a GM and a player, plus you need to be able to adapt the system, if it is designed for group play, for solo RP, which also requires certain knowledge and understanding, for example, how to play someone else's campaign and not spoil everything for yourself while reading the book for it during the playthrough. But overall, it is an solid option. Especially if we are talking about journalling games. With the advent of AI, keeping tables, tracking the hero's condition, etc., is many times easier.

Failing reading comprehension at the most basic level. He was talking about games designed for a single player, you ******* ****-souled ******. YWNBAH. Get out.

I assumed he was talking about adapting campaigns/modules/adventure paths that were written with groups in mind.

Anyway, I'm interested in solo play. I've tried using AI, but it's just not there yet. I don't think an LLM alone will cut it, it'll need a model with special training, MCP servers, a more defined structure with databases, and a game system designed to work with it all before it will really shine as an option.

[Kalarion]

I assumed he was talking about adapting campaigns/modules/adventure paths that were written with groups in mind.

Anyway, I'm interested in solo play. I've tried using AI, but it's just not there yet. I don't think an LLM alone will cut it, it'll need a model with special training, MCP servers, a more defined structure with databases, and a game system designed to work with it all before it will really shine as an option.

He was not. Maidenhaver listed Barbarian Prince as the example in the post that kicked off this topic. Here's one of the pages dedicated to it: https://dwarfstar.brainiac.com/ds_barbarianprince.html.

BARBARIAN PRINCE is a solitaire game of heroic adventure in a forgotten age of barbarism and sorcery. No opponent is necessary as the Event Booklet takes you through a pre-programmed sequence of encounters which is different each time you play the game. For each event, you, as the Barbarian Prince Cal Arath, must make the decisions which will make your quest successful -- or may cost you your life.

Reference as well for instance the solo Hobbitses game that Rusty started (and abandoned) an LP for in the HQ playground - Tolkien Quest.

It's relevant to stick to the specific type, because as you and the coomster have both stated, "adapting" typical TTRPGs to solo play is difficult, time-consuming and changes the nature of the game.

EDIT: added a second example solo RPG.

[SpellSword]

Just saw this video and figured I'd pass it on:
A Cheap Alternative to D\u0026D Miniatures!
Could be a simple and effective substitute for games that require token objects on the board.
(Kind of reminds me of Knights of the Chalice 2's tokens)

[Trickster]

Neil Walker just dropped the second edition of his Harry Potter RPG! It's a solid d10 system. Don't expect anything groundbreaking. But on the flip side, there's nothing painfully cringey either.

Download for free: https://neilwalker.itch.io/harry-potter ... aying-game

[enisey]

Just saw this video and figured I'd pass it on:
A Cheap Alternative to D\u0026D Miniatures!
Could be a simple and effective substitute for games that require token objects on the board.
(Kind of reminds me of Knights of the Chalice 2's tokens)

I went through every single Pathfinder bestiary PDF and ripped the images to make tokens. I made them for Roll20's 70-pixel grid (2 pixels for the borders), with enough density to enlarge to 4x4 without stretching. At 300 dpi, they're 0.93 inches.

It's all copyrighted stuff, so I'm afraid to share it, but a sample shouldn't hurt.

Zombie.png

[Algol]

I use solo oracles on Foundry. Roleplaying by yourself = a slog. Friends are gay. Friends will ultimately become ****** at a certain point. Therefore the only conversation parter is the wall. Just bring the ******* comet already.

[rusty_shackleford]

I use solo oracles on Foundry. Roleplaying by yourself = a slog. Friends are gay. Friends will ultimately become ****** at a certain point. Therefore the only conversation parter is the wall. Just bring the ******* comet already.

I did some roleplaying with claude a while back but I had it build a bunch of tooling infrastructure for storing memories, locations, etc., It turned out pretty good. There might be existing setups for this.

[Algol]

I use solo oracles on Foundry. Roleplaying by yourself = a slog. Friends are gay. Friends will ultimately become ****** at a certain point. Therefore the only conversation parter is the wall. Just bring the ******* comet already.

I did some roleplaying with claude a while back but I had it build a bunch of tooling infrastructure for storing memories, locations, etc., It turned out pretty good. There might be existing setups for this.

I don't really know how to do this very well.

[rusty_shackleford]

I use solo oracles on Foundry. Roleplaying by yourself = a slog. Friends are gay. Friends will ultimately become ****** at a certain point. Therefore the only conversation parter is the wall. Just bring the ******* comet already.

I did some roleplaying with claude a while back but I had it build a bunch of tooling infrastructure for storing memories, locations, etc., It turned out pretty good. There might be existing setups for this.

I don't really know how to do this very well.

Right, it's pretty specialized.
Whatever happened to AI Dungeon, @Tweed?

[Algol]

I did some roleplaying with claude a while back but I had it build a bunch of tooling infrastructure for storing memories, locations, etc., It turned out pretty good. There might be existing setups for this.

I don't really know how to do this very well.

Right, it's pretty specialized.
Whatever happened to AI Dungeon, @Tweed?

Is there a "dumbass guide"/primer to this sort of stuff? I use Gemini and usually upload the pdf of whatever low-complexity OSR I'm playing at the time to help me "learn" combat. But anything further than that? Like established characters/lands/etc is possible?

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't really know how to do this very well.

Right, it's pretty specialized.
Whatever happened to AI Dungeon, @Tweed?

Is there a "dumbass guide"/primer to this sort of stuff? I use Gemini and usually upload the pdf of whatever low-complexity OSR I'm playing at the time to help me "learn" combat. But anything further than that? Like established characters/lands/etc is possible?

Yes, but it takes a good bit of effort to get setup.
Getting it to adjudicate D&D properly is difficult anyways because the rules are so complex(read: long), it works better with much simpler systems.

[Algol]

Right, it's pretty specialized.
Whatever happened to AI Dungeon, @Tweed?

Is there a "dumbass guide"/primer to this sort of stuff? I use Gemini and usually upload the pdf of whatever low-complexity OSR I'm playing at the time to help me "learn" combat. But anything further than that? Like established characters/lands/etc is possible?

Yes, but it takes a good bit of effort to get setup.
Getting it to adjudicate D&D properly is difficult anyways because the rules are so complex(read: long), it works better with much simpler systems.

So feed it a "dumb blonde" system, like Tunnel Goons, perhaps? But how to structure/what order of questioning, I wonder?

[rusty_shackleford]

Is there a "dumbass guide"/primer to this sort of stuff? I use Gemini and usually upload the pdf of whatever low-complexity OSR I'm playing at the time to help me "learn" combat. But anything further than that? Like established characters/lands/etc is possible?

Yes, but it takes a good bit of effort to get setup.
Getting it to adjudicate D&D properly is difficult anyways because the rules are so complex(read: long), it works better with much simpler systems.

So feed it a "dumb blonde" system, like Tunnel Goons, perhaps? But how to structure/what order of questioning, I wonder?

I'd imagine someone has probably done a lot of the work. e.g., https://github.com/Mnehmos/mnehmos.rpg.mcp (not endorsing, first search result)
But it would require some understanding of setting up MCP and stuff + using an MCP-capable AI

[Tweed]

I did some roleplaying with claude a while back but I had it build a bunch of tooling infrastructure for storing memories, locations, etc., It turned out pretty good. There might be existing setups for this.

I don't really know how to do this very well.

Right, it's pretty specialized.
Whatever happened to AI Dungeon, @Tweed?

People abandoned AI Dungeon after Coomageddon because it's always been terrible at being a DM and much better at producing unspeakable smut, but OpenAI didn't like people using their model for that.

All LLMs struggle with tabletop stuff and need constant bitchslapping to stay on target.

EDIT EDIT: AI Dungeon is still around, but I have no idea if its gotten any better at that sort of thing.

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't really know how to do this very well.

Right, it's pretty specialized.
Whatever happened to AI Dungeon, @Tweed?

People abandoned AI Dungeon after Coomageddon because it's always been terrible at being a DM and much better at producing unspeakable smut, but OpenAI didn't like people using their model for that.

All LLMs struggle with tabletop stuff and need constant bitchslapping to stay on target.

EDIT EDIT: AI Dungeon is still around, but I have no idea if its gotten any better at that sort of thing.

I had success with what I was doing but it does require actual tool usage rather than telling the LLM to just 'do' things. So, everything from characters(or any thing that needed to be remembered) to rolling dice or even remembering/moving between/adding locations(node graph) was done using tool calls.

[Tweed]

Right, it's pretty specialized.
Whatever happened to AI Dungeon, @Tweed?

People abandoned AI Dungeon after Coomageddon because it's always been terrible at being a DM and much better at producing unspeakable smut, but OpenAI didn't like people using their model for that.

All LLMs struggle with tabletop stuff and need constant bitchslapping to stay on target.

EDIT EDIT: AI Dungeon is still around, but I have no idea if its gotten any better at that sort of thing.

I had success with what I was doing but it does require actual tool usage rather than telling the LLM to just 'do' things. So, everything from characters(or any thing that needed to be remembered) to rolling dice or even remembering/moving between/adding locations(node graph) was done using tool calls.

This was the primordial soup days compared to where we are now.