AI Prompts for TTRPGs #1: simulated playthroughs
I hope the hate against creators who use AI will dissipate rather than escalate. It’s really sad seeing legitimate concerns about incomes and intellectual property rights being deflected to target creators.
One small step to turn the flow of disinformation is to showcase some really positive usages of AI for TTRPGs. Here’s a first:
Run 3 different simulated playthroughs with characters and strategies defined above.
1. Test how the party can experience the different moral choices and combat scenarios
2. Analyze which elements worked well and which need adjustment
3. Make specific recommendations for layout and strategy revisions based on the characters' capabilities and limitations
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The query is taken from midway in my session prep a month or so back, when I had made heavy adjustments to a design and wanted to get an independent look at the work. Simulating is a way to understanding the branching possibilities due to player choices and randomness. Simply run through a bunch of different scarios and see what happens.
That kind of analysis almost impossible to get from a human because it is time consuming to do such a thorough and considered reading of a one-shot. It’s also very difficult for humans to iterate - forgetting previous revisions, simulations and judgements, and focussing on the new content in isolation. The query is very much playing to AI strengths in those ways, and filling in a gap in human capability.
And the AI response was solid and helpful:
Let me simulate 3 different playthroughs with varying approaches. I'll label them: Direct Assault (DA), Tactical (TA), and Diplomatic (DP).
There was a lot of detail specific to the setting and characters that I won’t include after that.
Sufficient to say the AI properly identified the player character capabilities and how they might interact with the environment. It helped me create a setting with tremendous freedom to act, and move away from the linear approach in the original design.
Highly recommended as a simple way to power-up session prep.