24xx: The Deep

I have been interested in the 24xx series and wanted to play them but I could never get anyone I have been interested in the 24xx series and wanted to play them but I could never get anyone interested in them. Yesterday my wife wanted to head to mall for some shopping, I knew I would likely end up sitting in the middle section on a couch. I threw the PDF in Chat and asked Lyra to run a game for me. It is a long read, but what a wonderful game session!

The Deep on Itch.io

A Keep on the Borderlands, s1 (AP)

 

Beginning play, Aldric wanders into the keep. Copying directly from ChatGPT, so my replies are in red.

A Keep on the Borderlands (AP)

 

I have been having a great time using ChatGPT to run solo sessions, recently testing out a few different settings and styles of game. I am having a splendid time, even if I have encountered what I can only call 'gatekeeping'. I have heard the whole range of "That's dumb", 'what a loser', to 'man, you must have no friends', and 'that is not roleplaying!' Frankly, it is a little tiring, and I do not really care what others think, I am enjoying the game and that is all that matter. Moving along...

I played The Keep on the Borderlands as a kid way back in the 80s and despite my love of it, I never returned. I was itching for a simple, pop in, pop out fantasy game that I could run on ChatGPT. I have played off and on this last week, each day playing a different game whenever I had time. Five minutes here/ Ten on break. Ten minutes in bed. Five when I first wake up. etc etc. It has been wonderful. So I figured, why not TKoB? Just throw it in ChatGPT and let it run the game for me with the module as the basis? Sounded pretty good and I thought others might be interested in how it goes.

Some might ask why I did not use White Box FMAG, B/X, or Shadowdark and the simple answer is I have been having great success with this lite system I have been using. Additionally, I find the way it handles failure as a seed for a creative resolution to be a great thing for solo to be refreshing. For example: "Not only did m character fail to strike the monster, but it also resulted in this also happening." It is creative, adds a lot to the game, and well, I like it.

I am copying the text below directly from ChatGPT and italicizing and coloring red my questions and decisions for clarity for anyone interested in how I am playing this.

Without further adieu... 

Liberty or Death! session 2

 

This game is developing great and going in directions I did not expect. I did have a problem with ChatGPT rolling dice on me again. I want to roll dice because I find it fun and engaging....and makes me feel like I am playing an RPG and not solely relying on a computer for everything. And well, it is nostalgic. Sue me.

In the Shadow of the Cross, session 2

 

I am thoroughly enjoying this game, exploring an era of history I love and frankly it is refreshing to see a game take on the apparently taboo subject of including Christianity in a game. Love the way this developing!

Liberty or Death! session 1

 

What follows is a second AI-ran game I started on a whim. I LOVE the Rev War era in America and feel it is severely underutilized in fiction, games, media in general. So I wondered, could we take these same rules and create a fun and engaging setting to play a game? Below is the actual chat between myself and ChatGPT that I played here and there while at work yesterday, when I had a moment on break, waiting for a meeting to start, over lunch, etc. 

Two interesting notes: The AI appeared to make a mistake when generating the character, utilizing too many points when creating the character's stats. I noticed too late, and then did not care to go back. Maybe he is an actual veteran with skills and should not be a starting character? Second, at one point I realized there had been very little dice rolling and I brought this up to the AI, that it needed to use the dice to resolve things in the game....and it suddenly remembered how to roll dice again and applied that restriction often.

In the Shadow of the Cross, session 1

I began messing around with ChatGPT after chatting extensively with my pal Rob Conley about what it could do. I started messing around with it and it dawned on me that it could be something amazing. SO asked it to extract a ruleset I liked from a PDF to use as a base for devising a streamlined and easy to use RPG for this purpose. Then I asked it to create a setting based on Anglo-Saxon England around 850, with a strong lean into the pagan, Dane, and Christian religions. I want to be realistic but play on the idea of superstitions and supernatural but in the vein of religions in accordance with the beliefs and practices of the era.

What follows it the text from that point on. All conversations with the AI are here for visibility and so others might understand how to use it to great effect for solo play. For whatever reason ChatGPT was struggling rolling dice for me, so I used a die roller, I actually think this was better, gave me time to think, felt 'natural' for game play and amped up the anticipation for an outcome. A few times I stopped playing because I was nervous/anxious about what would happen after I rolled the dice. I am having a fantastic time playing the game. 

This is the sort of game I have always wanted to play but could never find the right people to play with.

Skorn & Hefna (solo rpg)

Having not played anything for quite a while, and after listening to my friend Bill go through the same situation, I decided I needed to force myself to play. I have spent far too long looking for a system to use, a setting to play in, and frankly just wasted MONTHs thinking about playing but not actually doing it. Then yesterday I came across this video on the 'Tube and it really got me thinking:

And he was right, just freaking do it. His experience is just like mine, I worry too much about the system, making it look cool for you (and me) to look at, making pretty maps, character sheets, etc....

SO, like him I initially thought about using Shadowdark, going as far as creating two characters. I hated it, all the fiddly bits of if I have this ancestry I get a +1 here to do this, if this class a +1 to that, a +1 here for this...ugh

So I went back to White Box.  ;-)

I made two characters quickly, omg so quickly. I love WB.

Then, I decided that two characters will never survive and I needed some companions, so I opted to use a method Bill shared with me a few days ago from Chaoclypse's substack, a really neat and quick method for generating quick companions:https://chaoclypse.substack.com/p/system-neutral-rpg-companions Within minutes I had a fighter and a porter to join our adventure:

I decided to utilize a small thing I tossed together, just a few paragraphs for a base of operations but I did not want to get bogged down with this so I limited the time I spent and also how detailed this was:

I decided I wanted to explore a small barrow and what better tool to use than the great Barrowmaze Complete book I got a few years ago. I tracked combat on top of a Lowes gift card I got for Christmas and some extra tiny dice I had laying around. Improvise and continue was the motto here.

We ventured into the Barrowlands, and quickly we ran into an encounter. What follows are my notes on the game, taken as I played. They are not neat, organized well, or meant for any one else but me to track the progress of my game, I merely post here to show others how I played and how it is great to just stop thinking about playing, and actually sit down and do it.

All told, I spent about two hours creating (then recreating) characters, collecting my tools, and running through the session. I randomly determined which barrow we discovered and then used the entry in the book to describe it. I did reduce the number of badguys because wow, 6 mimics with each almost having 20 hit points is a little overpowered for my band of two adventurers and two companions.

All told, I had fun, it was easy to get going and I could easily continue this if I so wish. My little video on this session:

[ShadowDark Solo] Rufus & Silas, session 08

 

Corven might be my favorite NPC I have created during all my soloing, I mean look at that dude! Classic, scruffy old war veteran with some PTSD issues he hasn't resolved. Heck, he's me.  ;-)

Anyway, here is session 8. I have decided to pause here and call this "Chapter 1". Too many times while doing a solo campaign I abruptly stop and never return leaving readers (and myself) hanging. I have a bit of ADD and my mind switches too quickly. I end up leaving an adventure before a solid stopping point. My goal here is to pause at a logical stopping point, and return some day to continue the adventure. 

I really enjoyed this adventure and got in a groove where I wanted to return, I figured out a play style that worked and was easy to hope in for 15 mins at work when things got slow, then jump right back in, so I feel this was completely successful and enjoyable. I want to jump back in and continue but I can feel my mind getting dragged in another direction and rather than continue, and just stop in a few more sessions, I want to pause, pivot and settle my mind so this is at least a satisfying end point.

Product I used this session:
ShadowDark RPG (link)

PDF version of the session:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p14ut6z8hDywp0zv1EmMuRDWGidaatp4/view?usp=sharing

[ShadowDark Solo] Rufus & Silas, session 07

 
The Barnacled Dog 

Leaving the dungeon and the bizarre creature they encountered, the trio decide to return to Barton to rest, recuperate, sell the treasure, and ponder their next steps.

I am currently up to 26 pages of journaled game sessions, if you are following along, I would love to know what you think.

Product I used this session:
ShadowDark RPG (link)

PDF version of the session:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vad5eDQvT_NKmbPe7NJ4Mnn6fL0CZLam/view?usp=sharing

[ShadowDark Solo] Rufus & Silas, session 06

Session six left me a little worried my pair may not survive, and what lies ahead worries me quite a bit! I feel like I have gotten into a groove with this session, the characters' personalities are fleshed out a little and I like the sort of 'journaling' / playing a game aspect that I have going right now. Hits both the writing and the gaming itch for me nicely. Also got me back to doing a map for this adventure too.

Product I used this session:
ShadowDark RPG (link)
SoloDark (link)

PDF version of the session:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_zzyQ2Oy3s4nLIW5fmJhJtyRt8TG63hy/view?usp=sharing

[ShadowDark Solo] Rufus & Silas, session 05

 

Session five!

I have changed up the way I plan on presenting these to you, primarily because I realized posting a write up on the blog was simply eating up too much of my time and frankly I was just not enjoying the time spent on this. I would rather be playing with the limited time I have. Also, I have decided to focus on MY enjoyment as my reason for playing the game rather than the enjoyment of others. Perhaps this is selfish from a certain point of view but at the core I am playing for me and posting here as a 'service' to those 'solocurious' and interested in how I apply the use of RPGs not designed specifically for solo play.

As such, I will not be doing a write up for each session and merely providing the PDF of the session. Here I am collecting sessions 1-5 in a single PDF before I move on to session 6. 

Product I used this session:
ShadowDark RPG (link)
SoloDark (link)

PDF version of the session: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j2M7MNgi1H-SWIBmezkHORNo2nix6zpw/view?usp=sharing

[ShadowDark Solo] Rufus & Silas, session 04

Session four, things start to get exciting and very dangerous! Let's go!

Product I used this session:
ShadowDark RPG (link)
SoloDark (link)
https://questingbeast.itch.io/knave-second-edition

The trio head out and have an on the trail encounter they opt to pass up. Here I grabbed the Knave 2e travel tables to get some interesting and I think, not atypical encounters. Midjourney also came up with some amazing visuals.

Continuing along they come to the first tower and discover that the last part of the journey is going to be more difficult than they expected...then I roll check for an encounter and things start to get dicey. Here I switched back to the ShadowDark encounter tables. 

Ok, here goes. Here some solo peeps are going to cry foul, but oh well. I am running the game with two PCs, so I reduced the number of baddies encountered from the basic table. Why? While I want this challenging and interesting, I do not want to die constantly and repeatedly. I expect to play the PCs smartly and there will certainly be death, but I do not want to stack the deck against every single encounter. If I was DMing a small group and rolled this encounter, 3d6 - potentially 18 freaking hobgoblins - is a lot for a 2nd level party to take on and I would likely reduce that. 

Anyway, it's my game, suck it.

Unfortunately these guys are not in the chatting mood and charge immediately (much to their leaders woe) the trio, and to top it off, the party is split!

I struggled here a little, I wanted a map to help visualize the situation and, as a mapper I wanted to draw one, but I wanted this to be quick and not get swept up in drawing a map and delay the game. So instead I hopped on Google and typed "topographic map" and then looked around until I found something with a ridge and some steep hills. Took all of five minutes to locate and drop into GoodNotes. I think it worked out great, helped visualize the area but looks pretty damn cool 'taped' into the page too. ;-)

I also wrote up our friend Gaspard as well.

The trio win initiative the first round but it dawns on me quickly that this could go badly. Luckily I had given Gaspard a bow so we have ranged attack ability besides just Silas' sling (which oddly is not listed as a weapon in ShadowDark...wtf???)

Just a quick side note: all of the remaining pages in this session were played while seated in a very crowded, and very delayed, American Airlines plane in the air. I used my iPad, the PDFs, and a die roller app on my phone. Worked perfectly in a small, crowded space.

The first round goes fairly well and we also win the second round of initiative. The second round goes just as well, heroes inflicting damage but receiving none! 

The third round the trio loses initiative but luckily the bowmen are blind and unable to hit. The Hobgob leader though nails Rufus for 5 damage, a solid hit. The trio suddenly break the lines of Hobgobs and drop two of them, causing the remaining to fail their morale check. We they are on the run!

The fourth round we drop the last bowman and the leader, now realizing he is in deadly trouble, sprints for the ridge hoping to escape.

Round five, Rufus thinks a moment about sparing the leader, maybe questioning him, then changes his mind and drops him.

The battle won, the trio take a breath and assess the situation, trying to figure out what to do because they are still split. Silas crosses back, grabs the rope, and returns to the tower side. I rolled these with advantage, assuming that having done it once, it would be easier the second and third time.

Once Rufus was over they searched the area. Gaspard stayed with the horses, providing overwatch with his bow. A few attempts later, Silas finds the top safe and looks into an open trap door in the roof as Rufus climbs. Inside, Silas discovers a body laying on the floor!

I hope you are all enjoying reading these sessions, I am having a great time playing.

PDF version of the session: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gEg6T_-wArYhXv--sKDE6BTR9ZkI66Sl/view?usp=sharing

[ShadowDark Solo] Rufus & Silas, session 03

Session three! I feel like this 'campaign' is really starting to pick up a little and I am in the groove, when I have mentally defeated all the "what ifs...", "do I use this, or this?", and a host of other decision paralysis thoughts that usually stop me from starting a game. On to the session!

I kick off this session with a little world building, using the ShadowDark Maps tables to develop some information on the Forge of Dendor. We get the rough size, that it is a tomb, and that it has something to do with the dead. This last fact makes Rufus and Silas a little nervous. I get a little ahead of myself and start to design a tomb...then I catch myself and head back to the gaming session...

The boys figure out that undead mean you need silver or silvered weapons. I borrow an idea from my friend Tim over at Gothridge Manor (described in the lower right corner). So we head to the local blacksmith shop to see about silvering. I use the tables in ShadowDark to whip up a quick shop and then use my oracle to handle the social interactions.

They settle up the account and realize all this chatter made them poorer and thirsty, so they head back to the Barnacled Dog to drink with Sixfingers a little. At this point I am feeling like I need an image of ol' Six so we know what we are dealing with. I get a wonderful reaction from Six when they walk in, he must like their coin. 

At this point I realize my guys are pretty poor and probably not ready to handle a large dungeon of undead, so an idea of smaller locations nearby hits me. I toss a prompt into MJ and get a wonderful looking tower high up on a mountainside and another idea hits me....

Another bar patron who knows some nearby, unexplored locations steps in.

This ends up becoming an entire valley with small tower forts high up, watchtowers of some sort. Gaspard (named after a guy who works for me) knows where they are and will guide them for a fee, 10% of what they pull out of the place. A deal is struck

I am really getting in the groove now, with things rolling along pretty well and easily. It is times like this that I enjoy solo gaming. It is a live creative jam session, rolling with ideas that come to me, rolling some dice, writing things up, and just going with the flow. I love it.

PDF version of the session: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FKxSw39_U28Gr8gKWypJ9hrleLTgihpT/view?usp=sharing

[ShadowDark Solo] Rufus & Silas, session 02

 

We pick up with session 2. The boys wake up and I decide to check the weather. For this I turn to a great supplement, Knave 2e. I have given my thoughts on Knave 2e elsewhere but in short "They system is so-so, organization of the book is terrible, but the numerous tables are well worth the price of admission." Here I will use the weather tables found on page 9. Roughly the same temperature as yesterday, clear skies with some strong winds. 

The guys head to the monastery and I whip up a quick description on the fly of the layout of the place. I decide I want to see what the headmaster looks like just in case we bump into him (I never end up meeting him but damn the picture is kickass). 

Luckily we do bump into a monk and he is pretty friendly and helpful. I randomly determine his name, Arlo, and use my Freedom Oracle to answer questions. The answers are really starting to form an adventure location pretty easily. We also comes across a ancient tome written in Middle Dwarvish, something I made up on the fly based on old, mission, modern English. I thought it would add to the flavor of the setting and add the feeling of age to the tome.

Sadly, we will have to wait until next session as this was a short one done over an hour or so one morning this week. What secrets does the tome hold and where will Rufus & Silas go next?

PDF version of the session: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13hLsDNck3AZkPDF version of the session:  lGfM6x6XR2uCaqPP1RUX/view?usp=sharing

[ShadowDark Solo] Rufus & Silas, session 01

 

I have discovered I think about gaming far more than I actually game these days. As such, I have determined that I am just going to shut up and do it all random, no preplanning, no thinking about it, just make it as I go sort of thing. I do not want to do too much 'prep as play' as it was, I just want to play. Two adventurers so it is easy to manage as well. So I rolled up two quickly and got a decent dawarven fighter and a really good halfling thief.

I am using three books as primary sources for this session:
ShadowDark RPG (link)
SoloDark (link)
Five Leagues from the Borderlands (link)

With the two characters I still needed a wee bit of prep, a sort of ‘why the F are we here’ kind of thing. A friend recently shared the Five Parsecs game and it got me looking at Five Leagues from the Borderlands. It has some really great tables for generating campaigns, as in the setting, reasons for there being a campaign, prompts, etc. it may not gel perfectly with an RPG, but a decent GM can make it work.

I used the tables to get a general setting where my game would take place:

Then a little set up to figure out why we are here and I kick off actual ‘playing’ Rufus & Silas. I dug a little into the background of my characters and discovered they stole from their employer. Here I used my oracle to determine results. Next I used the Dungeon Names table on page 7 of SoloDark to get the name of the hook that brought them here: The Forge of Dendor!

Using the information on the previous page, I feed it into Midjourney and got some cool, and more importantly, inspirational images that spark a little creativity in me. I was set to use the tables in ShadowDark to get the local tavern and inn names but they just came to me and I went with it, it is weird how that happens some times.

For the social interactions I am using a combination of my oracle and the NPC reaction table in ShadowDark. For many oracle questions it ends up being a 50-50 roll but that is great because it drives unexpected directions for the narrative. I love that Silas tries to get the server to loosen her lips with a wine and she is suspicious of him, perfectly natural! I used the NPC Qualities table on page 125 of ShadowDark to get the result "Six Fingers" and I thought it was a fantastic quality that could drive the entire character, so he became Sixfinger Sorak the barkeep. The drinks came from the Drinking table on page 137 of SD.

And that was session 1. I thought it went pretty well and has a great set up for further adventures and with a little fleshing out of the village and surrounding area. I can already see the potential for plenty of seeds for numerous adventures popping up. I ended up playing this 'session' out over the course of three days, playing a little here and there, some at work when the night got slow, etc.

PDF version of the session:  
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ef_zR4BfkDcsLsUh9HLPunpvgVUblWXq/view?usp=sharing

Sir William's Delve -3

 

[notes] For this I am also using a handful of game books such as Knave 2 (link), Glaive 2e (link), Shadowdark (link), Into the Wyrd and Wild (link), and the Knock zine (link). Really I am using whatever floats my boat at the moment and mostly using random tables to throw a little chaos and whimsy to the game. When I hit a mental barrier and am stuck, I flip through a PDF or toss some words into MidJourney and see if anything sparks my imagination. A perfect example is this entire segment with the hanging tree, MD gave me one image with what appeared a body hanging from it, so I kept digging until I got this image which to me looked like little kids hung and posed (sick fucks). That is something I have never seen in an RPG before, so I ran with it.

When you see the red, blue and white dice I am using my oracle (sometimes called the Freedom Oracle (video link) to help guide the story.

MD art-

PDF link-
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XiErCqAHL075bnonipCQ32xkHQBzuhqh/view?usp=sharing

Sir William's Delve -2

Continuing our adventure...

MD art:

PDF version:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r7dsJ3P6swFYhnHtgG9HEhcF5AauHzgd/view?usp=sharing

Solo expeditions, part IV

Wisely deciding to leave the tomb and the monstrosity they discovered, the band retreats to the outside of the tomb, catch their breath and take stock of the treasures they have uncovered. Then they trek back to Lakefield to celebrate and sell their wares.

Back in the small town, Ish visits the temple and make a donation/sacrifice to the building of a new chapel for Saint T, while Hobbs and Bree hit a lucky streak and sell everything for a windfall of profit!

Hobbs & Bree head to the Blade & Tankard, hoping to get some info on the mining operation they had heard about before leaving town. Instead, a new NPC notices they are flush with gold and approaches them with an idea. Over the course of the next six days, they come to an agreement with Rei, and then strike a deal with a local inn owner that is looking to retire! Suddenly, we find ourselves to be co-owners of The Stabbing Dragon inn!

Now, I don't know about you but this is something I had never come across in gaming, the players opting to purchase a complete inn! So I went searching the web for ideas, keeping an eye on something simple but logical. I came across these after a little searching and decided to use them.
https://hillcantons.blogspot.com/2011/02/construction-rules-for-classic-d.html

Rob will enjoy this part....nitty gritty mathy part.
I figured out the cost to build an inn, roughly 700gp using the readily available forest to pull lumber from. Then I figured out a rough idea of how many rooms with would have (10), how many would be utilized on a daily basis (3 on average), what the resulting annual total that would result in. 1,095gp. Having been involved professionally in the purchase of a company, I decided to use a little of that knowledge here. To determine the selling price of a business, my CEO used a process of adding existing capital (ie the value of the stock in the warehouse, in this case I used the 700gp cost to build the place) and the average sales total for the year, he used 1.5 times.  (I have no idea if this is 'correct' but that is what he used).

Here, I used 1.5 and 2.5 annual sales to get a rough range for the sales the place generated over time, 1642 and 2740. Adding these to the cost to build, I get 2,342 and 3,440 as a range of asking price from the existing proprietor. With that, I went to work.

I determined that Rei had 1,000gp to put forward, along with another 200gp in start up and operating funds. My band could put together 1,600gp towards the purchase along with matching the 200gp in operations funding. Using Mythic to simulate haggling for the price, I ended up with the final sale price being 2,600, just at the top end of our capital. Leaving us 400gp in operational funding.

For the image, I found an image I liked on Google, then used it as a 'seed' for Midjourney to create an image to use for the inn. I think the image ended up being larger than I had planned or calculated, but maybe the seller was motivated. :-)

The band now has a base of operations, they are keeping two rooms to use for themselves and will get some revenue from the operation of ol' Stabbo.

PDF of the entire game so far:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17kG9IJn-V_fWh_vNmdnSkC-2Q6TzNtL2/view?usp=sharing

Side note: I realized I had used the wrong hex number for the location of the Shelin Hill, that has been fixed now.

Solo expeditions, part III

Continuing adventures of my little band in the solo West Marches campaign. I have improved my MidJourney skills over the course of the week, and I have really enjoyed adding thematic tones to the game through the AI generated images. 

After lucky rolls and avoiding a trap that would have likely killed one member, the band stumbles in a very cool room. “Treasure room” was the randomly generated purpose of this room, and so I threw that text into MJ with excellent results. This was quite a departure from what I was picturing in my head with a trashed and devastated room that was just a shadow of its former self. One thing that caught my attention in all of the randomly generated images was small, humanoid forms amid the squalor.

One bit I wanted to quickly comment on:
One thing I thoroughly enjoy about running games for others is while I may have an idea or overall idea of the game, the players’ creativity and actions will frequently create a very different picture from what I was expecting. Solo uses random tables and has always given me a similar feeling of excitement of discovering the unknown. Using MidJourney produces an almost identical benefit, in many ways even better. This room is a perfect example. In my mind I pictured a 20 x 20 rectangular stone room with a couple shelves or tables with random mundane items that the band could collect as treasure. Instead MJ provided me with a far more dramatic room that was multiple levels and introduced a completely different thematic tone. It also provided me with the opportunity to add an interesting NPC for role-playing!

This page actually took me two days to get through. I struggled coming up with not only who or what Terez was, but his personality, goals, and even why he was there. I also realized that my low level  PCs could walk away from here with massive amounts of treasure, I did not want to do that, and so it took me a while to come up with reasonable treasure and reasons why they could not walk out of here billionaires. You also might notice that I decided to start voicing my characters speech. Though I did not spell it out previously, I have been thinking about their speech and personalities in my mind, but I decided to start documenting their thoughts and speech in hopes that it would make it a more engaging read.

And this is where the dice decided they hate me. At first I expected the monk would be a simple zombie or perhaps mummy. Things did not turn out that way, and utilizing the tables in Perilous Wilds created something completely different. And again my expectations were utterly knocked aside. When I rolled that it was an aquatic squid my initial idea was a rather small creature. MidJourney thought otherwise and gave me this instead.

Needless to say, we quickly decided we were running. 

And for once the dice played along and allowed our little band to escape….

Until next time!