Epic Adventure

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I opened my email and Mike had sent me an email with a link. The first line of the email said

“Here's a first draft of a GM's AI assistant particularly geared to a) Pulp Cthulhu, and b) Masks of Nyarlathotep.”

The email went on to explain how to sign up for it and how Mike had already uploaded a ton of information to the AI

I tentatively followed the links and set up the AI program. I asked it a few game related questions and was impressed by how quickly it came back with the answers.

I started by having the program open in the background while running my Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign. Anytime there was a rule question I would type it into the program instead of trying to look it up in the book. I would later go back after the game and confirm what I had done was correct.

It was pretty helpful.

As I became more comfortable with it I would ask it questions about the specific plot of the game when I found myself struggling with answering a question. It seemed to handle those very well.

I even used it to write a descriptive scene for the game when I was struggling to post an after-game report to the group.

I had to make some tweaks, but overall it was pretty cool.

Fast forward almost a year and I have changed my mind when it comes to AI. You have heard me argue against AI time and time again on this podcast I am back to eat crow.

I like it.

I use it.

It’s very helpful.

And Mike is giggling right now hearing me say that.

On this episode we are going to talk about AI tools, how to use them, what they are good for, and why I was wrong this entire time.

Ok Mike, get it over with, tell me you told me so.

[Kick to Mike]

Almost forgot! Links:

• Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet (a better writer than ChatGPT): https://claude.ai/new
• Hugging Face (a place for super nerds to get their own AI models to run locally): https://huggingface.co/
• CivitAI (a place for super nerds to get their own stable diffusion models for making AI art locally - NSFW Alert!!!): https://civitai.com/

· https://www.artbreeder.com/

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In this episode of Epic Adventure Steve talks to Mike and Christina about the development of the Radiance Adventure Engine.
Mike shares how The Shine Storytelling Engine morphed into Luminous and eventually Radiance. Christina gives us a breakdown of how the system works. And I talk about my play-testing experience.
Radiance is a new game from Oddfish Games, or should I say it's a new game tool. It allows you to solo roleplay any TTRPG system you can think of and, I believe it's the best new tool for game masters and players alike.
You can find more at the following links.
https://oddfishgames.com/
https://oddfishgames.com/products/the-radiance-adventure-engine-pre-order-wip
https://oddfishgames.com/products/shine-pre-order
https://oddfishgames.com/products/luminous-pre-order

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I couldn’t tell you the date, but I remember sitting in my parent’s basement, my buddy Dave was over and spending the night. We were staying up late, drinking why too much Dr. Pepper and eating all the popcorn we could get our hands on. We were watching late night movies and having a blast like most 10-year-olds.

That’s when we watched what I would later figure out, was my first Post Apocalyptic Film...The Omega Man with Charlen Heston.

It wouldn’t be my last.

The idea of a world where all the people were gone and you could just run around and grab whatever you wanted was pretty cool for a 10 year old. I have to admit it was pretty cool as a 16 year old as well when I watched Night of the Comet.

Since then, I have seen them all...Ok, not all of them. But, from The Last Man on Earth, to A Boy and His Dog, from Death Race 2000, to Road Warrior, and from Escape from New York, to finally Children of Men (which by the way is the best post-apocalyptic movie every)

We could spend hours or maybe even days talking about the post-apocalyptic genre. From Books, to films, to computer games and yes, table top roleplaying games. But Mike, Christina, and I are going to try our best a focus on the genre concepts of the post-apocalyptic scene and how to bring them into your roleplaying games.

Let’s start with you Mike, Do you remember your fist taste of the Post Apocalypse?

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Welcome to You Heard it Here Last where we talk about news you’ve already heard.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/mongoose-acquires-twilight-2000-and-2300-ad.707036/

Mongoose Publishing is at it again. Recently we discussed that Marc Miller had turned over publishing of the Traveller RPG to Mongoose and now they have picked up the rights to Twilight 2000 and 2300 AD. Mongoose has been publishing 2300 AD under licensing since 2007 and currently Free League has the publishing rights for Twilight 2000. Mongoose reports nothing will change and Free League will continue with Twilight 2000 until the current licensing phase ends.

While not necessarily canonical Twilight 2000, 2300 AD, and Traveller all feel like part of the same universe and this seems to open up a huge IP space for Mongoose going forward.

Mike, what are your thoughts?

[Kick to Mike]

Christina, your take?

[Kick to Christina]

Our next item was a minor if interesting article from Rascal News

https://www.rascal.news/oh-captain-my-captain-rpg-simon-and-schuster/

The article starts with “On September 24, Simon & Schuster’s Adams Media released Oh Captain, My Captain! a Descended From The Queen RPG by James D’Amato. This marks the first time in recent memory that an imprint of the Big 5 (the largest entities in book publishing, which include S&S, Penguin Random House, Hatchette Livre, HarperCollins, and Macmillan) has produced a standalone tabletop roleplaying game.”

I guess I have a longer memory, because TSR had a publishing deal, albeit a rather strange one, with Random House in the 1980s and for a long time Dungeons and Dragons was a common sight in traditional bookstores of the day. But, to be fair the low sales of RPGs dropped them from consideration by traditional publishing houses decades ago.

This is what I find interesting. The article discusses the possibilities that TTRPGs might once again become a hot product at the traditional publishing houses and how that’s a good thing, however, the traditional publishing companies are not in a good place write now.

Indie publishing and self-publishing, especially with the creation of Kindle Unlimited have done a number on the traditional publishing companies and they no longer hold the book world in a vice grip. This almost seems like a desperate grab by the Big 5 to gain some market share.

Mike, thoughts?

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Downtime is that nebulous period between game sessions where the characters have an opportunity to pursue long term goals or simply handle a little organization, rest, and repair before the next big adventure.

Players can use the downtime by announcing what their character will be doing over the next couple of weeks. Anything from buying equipment, crafting magic items, fighting in the arena, building a castle, or getting sloppy drunk at the local inn is possible. The game master rolls some dice and tells the players the outcomes of their characters actions. Weeks go by in minutes.

Everyone ready to get back to the adventure?

Cool.

And back into the dungeon we go.

Over the years downtime has evolved to a full set of rules in D&D 5e. But that wasn’t always the case.

In Gary Gygax’s original rules for dungeon and dragons everything happened in real time. Including the time between games. If your group got together on Sunday afternoon and began exploring the dungeon, they had better come to a good stopping point before calling it a night because if a week of real time passes before the gang can get back together again then a week of game time passes in the campaign world.

Minute for minute, hour for hour, day for day.

Personally, I love that idea.

It’s often called persistent roleplaying and is most commonly found in Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games such as Everquest, Lord of the Rings Online, and Star Wars The Old Republic. But you can do the same thing with your table top games.

By utilizing concepts like play by post, emails, discord and other online tools the game doesn’t have to stop when the players call it a night. All of the traditional downtime activity can occur, but in a more fluid roleplaying sense. Instead of rolling a dice to see if the Paladin started his new church use discord to play out the relevant planning, conversations, and problems that arise during the week. When the players come back together for the game, they will have a rich history to share with each other, improving roleplaying all around.

Does this take work. Sure it does. The game master will have to be available to read the messages and respond in kind. The players will need to responsive to the questions and interaction created by the game master. But really you are only talking about an extra 20 minutes or so a day to have a persistent and ongoing world to adventure in. Instead of turning downtime into a series of random rolls we allow are characters to live and populate the adventure world we have created. This doesn’t eliminate the concept of downtime, on the contrary it elevates it to a whole new level.

Because everyone needs downtime.

As a matter of fact, Mike, Christina, and I need some Downtime ourselves. With the holiday season upon us it seems like a perfect opportunity for some downtime. We are going to take December off and level up.

In January we will be back with all new episodes for Season 2 of Epic Adventure.

And Mike, Christina, and I will be sporting new level 2 characters with a better THACO and maybe even a +1 quip here or there.

We look forward to seeing you in January.

Until then, Have an Epic Adventure.