This story begins with my love of Role Playing Games (RPGs) and I do love them. Growing up, I would purchase Dungeons & Dragons (D&D)materials all the time. I loved reading about the character classes and different races, about unique skills and abilities, about spells and monsters. It really captivated my imagination. Later as video games started developing, I enjoyed a variety of RPGs, but nothing really captured the feeling of world creation of old school table-top gaming. So when AI came along, I started wondering how RPGs would develop... And then I found Everweave. It is a great game and I highly recommend it, if you are into that sort of RPG (which I clearly am), but Everweave isn't cheap. Now I understand that building a game takes time and money and that developing an AI model is no easy feat and also requires money, so I'm not judging the Everweave folks. I get it, they need to make a return on their investment. I'm not here to bemoan the workings of our capitalist system. I paid; in fact, I paid twice. I purchased a chunk of 900 turns and then purchased a six month subscription with 1000 turns a month. I enjoy the game, but my wallet can only take so much abuse. Enter Gems.
After playing Everweave for a short time, it occurred to me that it is really just a slick AI model and that Gemini was offering the possibility to build my own version of the game. I went online and found a old, free version of the GURPS system. If you are unfamiliar, it is a generic gaming system that is meant to be adaptable to any sort of gaming world — fantasy, spy, space, etc. If you can think it, GURPS can help you make it into a RPG. It seemed like a good place to start. I created a Gem in Gemini.
 |
| RPG V1 prompt in Gemini Gems |
I uploaded the PDF of the rules to Gems. Gave it title, a description, and then the prompt. Voila! A RPG was born. Now to be fair, Everweave is way more slick than mine, but mine is free and still fun. I can create as many new games and universes as I want by simply using the Gem and then renaming the new chat. After building this one, I was so happy with the results, I built three new characters all in different RPG universes. One was a typical fantasy adventure world where magic and monsters exist. Another is a modern day world where psionic powers exist. The third one is a pirate adventure in space. The options are really limitless... But, the GURPS rules are different from the old school D&D rules, so I continued to experiment.
 |
| RPG V2 prompt in Gemini Gems |
I found some old, free D&D rules online to build from for the next iteration of the RPG. I used the
D&D Basic Rules (2018) and the
Dungeon Master D&D Basic Rules 0.1 as the core of the world creation, but I also added a photo of a map of a land called Caprona to give some context. This latest version is very true to the D&D rules, which is something I was really hoping to achieve. I'm going to begin trying to provide my DM with more guidance on how to play, but it is responsive to my instructions and questions about game play, which is amazing to see in action. I asked it about some calculations it did to arrive at a certain point in the game and it explained, in great detail, how it rolled the "dice" and I failed, but because my roll was close (I needed a 10 and he rolled a 9) he gave it to me because my characters background as a life-long criminal made the story odd to not be successful on this particular attempted roll. I found that fascinating. It really is "thinking" through the game play. Another time I recommended something and it said, "That is a great idea. Moving forward, I will adjust the game accordingly."
So get into Gemini Gems and build yourself an old school RPG game, you won't be disappointed with the results.
No comments:
Post a Comment