Syncing into the Digital Frontier: A Call to the Wired (Spheres/Worm Parahumans/ChatGPT)

[ahanna12345]

Calling all Movers and Shakers, Brutes and Strangers

Weary from years of rolling dice in the tangled sprawl of Dungeons & Dragons, I'm making a play that might just inject some fresh life into our game. I've got a taste for the mechanics, a knack for throwing you into the deep end of challenging combat, but the damn dialogue and scene-setting descriptions... they're like trying to navigate the back alleys of Brockton Bay blindfolded.

Enter ChatGPT, my chrome companion in this quest for narrative salvation. Every NPC decision will ride the currents of its enigmatic responses, with my worn-out hand only giving it a nudge here and there to keep the story on track.

Now, before we jack into this new matrix, I need to know if any of you are game. Picture this: a Pathfinder 1e campaign riding the Spheres system, set against the gritty backdrop of the Wormverse. Starting level in the range of 4-6, an extra custom trait sculpting your essence—vial, natural, case 53, bud, and whatnot. Earth GPT, a new world rising from the ashes of the digital crucible.

Here's where I need your shards connected. Do we dive into the aftermath of Gold Morning, where powers are sparking chaos left and right? Or do we hit the streets of a city shackled by a hierarchy of heroes and villains, or maybe we embrace the Wild West of uncertainty?

The kicker? ChatGPT and the Spheres will whip up villains on the fly, a few talents and feats slapped onto a generic build. A semi-complex backstory will be woven in realtime, right before your augmented eyes.

So, Tinkerers and Thinkers , are you ready to ride the neon-lit datastreams of this experiment? Your input could shape the very code of our digital journey.

 

About the Game:

• System: Spheres Pathfinder 1st Edition
• Starting Level: 4th-6th
• Decision-Making: Dice and ChatGPT will puppet the NPCs. I'll keep an eye on the strings for a world that makes sense.
• Player Agency: We're talking thematic reskins for powers, but let's stay true to the Worm vibe.

Your Input Matters:

1. Interest Check: You down for a Spheres Pathfinder Worm gig where ChatGPT spins the tale?

2. Silliness Tolerance: ChatGPT's gonna make this a twisted carnival. Are you in for the chaos, or you want a structured ride? And how much should I babysit ChatGPT?

3. Setting Preferences: What's your flavor - rebuilding, primitive/modern, or cyberpunk? How messed up and organized should parahumans be?

4. Player-Centric Storytelling: What questions should I shoot at the players? What themes, elements, or crazy specifics do they want in this trip?

Drop your thoughts in the mix, and let's crank up the chaos. Can't promise a smooth ride, but it's gonna be one helluva trip.

Stay Wired, Ahanna

Edited December 31, 2023 by ahanna12345 (see edit history)

[Butchern]

2 hours ago, ahanna12345 said:

• Decision-Making: Dice and ChatGPT will puppet the NPCs. I'll keep an eye on the strings for a world that makes sense.

Love it! I am running a Fate fantasy game right now where were are more or less doing just this. So far, so good. I don't have time to play in another game (and I suck with Pathfinder), but I'll be watching this with interest to see how it turns out.

[matt_s]

I think one of the biggest uses of generative AI on MW has been generating character images especially given the relative paucity of (free to use) fantasy art for more obscure images. I personally like using public domain photographs or paintings where I can - something more real about those than other mediums - but have used the version of Dall-E integrated into microsoft copilot as well.

I know Powderhorn (don't like pinging random users into threads) has used ChatGPT to generate lists of provisions for his Worlds Without Number game as well.

There are dedicated generative tools for dungeon layouts. If you tell DALL-E to generate a dnd style dungeon it will give you plenty of floor plans as well. The grid will likely be completely mussed up but pasting into a vector graphics tool (or even roll20 I think does this) and overlaying tokens and a grid will fix that.

I did throw a passage from a post into Copilot and told it to check grammar and I think it came out kind of scuffed for what its worth. Plain old microsoft word is likely better for copy-editing posts.

[Powderhorn]

I don't mind getting pinged on stuff that pertains :)

I've actually used ChatGPT for a lot of stuff. However, I don't use it raw, so to speak. I give a prompt, narrow or broad, and have it spitball ideas at me. Then I choose ideas and either have it expand on them (if it's a high level thing) or edit them myself for consistency with the setting and tone.

Knowing it's a bit of a meme, but even still, I also use the tables in the ___ Without Numbers series quite extensively. Just by rolling rules-as-written has gotten us to some really interesting encounters and plot points. In fact, I often use those tables together with ChatGPT - "The table says this, please give ten examples of..." and go from there. As a way to just kinda get the creative juices flowing, I've found it a great tool. And for "flavor" stuff, it's been great as well. "Please write a history of... in the style of the Greek poet Homer."

"Sing, O Muse..."

[Niblooey]

Huh. Would using a bot to spit out rough build ideas even work? Pathfinder Spheres doesn't really mesh well with Parahumans style powers (I came up with a few the last time you proposed this, but I found myself intentionally stretching and constraining stuff or translating mechanics until I hit a result that sorta fits), so I'm worried slamming together a rough build's just gonna end up with something weird or too generic to work with (in the context of the setting, I mean; most parahuman's powers are weird as heck on a conceptual level).

Uh, for context, some Spheres parahumans I designed. Couldn't find where I put them, so had to refresh my memory a bit. I also decided to add some category descriptions to help people unfamiliar with the setting follow along. You guys don't need to know the categories to make a good cape, it's more an excuse to let people's imaginations get stirred with a bunch of examples.

• A BreakerPowerset that rapidly swaps between the parahuman's normal form and a power-based form. The power effect often literally is the cape, like turning into a living fireball that explodes before reforming back into their normal form, or maybe the cape slips into a pocket space within people's minds. Trends towards weirder stuff, as a result.
  
  Might be hard to wrap your heads around what counts as a breaker and what doesn't; it's pretty confounding lol./ChangerCapes that transform, like turning into a monster or shapeshifting. Bit straightforwards.
  
  Changers are more typical, creature-like transformations, while Breakers tend to mean they can 'break' form at a moment's notice with little to no warning and are a bit... esoteric? Changing into a icy bear with wings and ice breath vs Breaking into state that turns you into shadows and lets you attack people through them; the former at least plays at following physical logic, even if the wings work way better than they reasonably should.
  
  This power happens to exist in the weird middle-ground, where she uses her breaker state to transform herself, though they're more on the minor end, like turning her gauntlets into claws and stretching herself with elastics. (Brute/Mover) with the power to meld with the physical properties of materials she's touching (primarily her suit of armor and the surrounding air) and shift her form around through it. Was a Shifter (Martial/Dimension Shifter), using Blink to represent partially melding with air and causing attacks to miss, and can merge into surfaces to slide within them unseen, and had a couple talents to give her DR and precision dmg immunity, as well as random talents for to give her similar properties to represent some of the materials I'm expecting her to encounter.
  It worked alright in this case, but a flaw I noticed is that there's no way to be flexible with talent allocation without an ability dedicated to that, so if she needed more than 3-4 talents to cover most material properties, there's a chance she'd be mechanically incapable of using her power on a weird material that she definitely should be able to, thematically speaking.
   
• A BruteCape is difficult to take down through traditional methods; they're physically tough or hardy, can regenerate from damage, mitigate damage taken, or outright prevent most attacks from landing, among other things. Lots of superstrength users are in this group, since super strong capes are also usually super durable somehow, but it's primarily defined by the defensive aspects.
  
  It's kinda hard to kill someone who can fashion large, bulky bodies to fight with./Changer who transforms into a pile of greenery and fashions themselves into a big leaf monster, using their powers to take over patches of greenery and manipulating them around (making trees swing their limbs, have grass tie themselves into knots and trip folk, or weave branches into walls). Hard to take down because they come back from the "dead". Was a Wraith (Mistshade), using the Anima haunt path to generate temporary bodies out of plants and reflavoring their mist as leaves flying everywhere.
  Think my issue with this was that I worked too hard to come up with mechanics to fit a theme; it's hard to make a powerset that works well with spheres mechanics without getting a lot of awkward quirks. But eh, it was a while ago since I've made this, dunno. At least, this result works out okay.
   
• A StrikerA Cape whose power operates at close range; basically touch/contact. Things like being able to extend poisonous spines from within your body, or make your fists cause explosions upon impact, or the ability to make anything you touch unbreakable (letting you use impossibly sharp blades without dulling them, or strike people with a sledgehammer without causing serious harm), or surround your body in a deadly aura of chill.
  
  Notably, superstrength users without defensive aspects tend to be put here; it's the glass cannon aspect that a lot of strikers embody./MoverCape who's highly mobile. Generally means they're difficult to pin down through usual tactics. They can cover tons of ground in a fight, do crazy maneuvers like climbing on ceilings or flying around, be difficult to trap in cause they always slip right out, or even stuff like teleportation. Uh, move a lot, I guess. specializing in friction manipulation, drastically increasing or decreasing it on touched surfaces. Primarily relies on the Wrestling and Scoundrel spheres for effortless grappling and fun tricks like touching someone's lips to glue them shut, or pinning their hands to their legs. Has a couple protokinesis feats to represent walking on walls and balancing on wires, too, but obtaining those on an otherwise noncaster is finicky (would probably need to houserule something to make it fit). There's also no way to make objects sticky, but that can probably be homebrewed as a Creation sphere Alter talent? Most systems lack this sort of thing though, sticky effects are super niche :3
   
• A ShakerA Cape who can use their powers to 'control' a large region of space. Area-denial, massed attacks, terrain manipulation, etc. Can be anything from lighting a room on fire to building walls out of forcefields, altering the gravity so people walk on walls, or setting floating pieces of explosive glass everywhere.
  
  Should note: Most of these categories are more concerned with how a parahuman operates in a fight and their methodology rather than innate aspects of the powers themselves. This is partially because of how powers are personalized to a given parahuman, and partially because this categorization system was designed to make it easier to devise tactics to take them down. It's consistent enough you can stick their category into a psychological profile, as a minor element to flesh it out. (minor StrangerA Cape whose power lets them manipulate or conceal information and methods of obtaining it. It's like, things that alter your perceptions and otherwise makes it hard to coordinate or work with others, or puts things up to question. It's less vague than how I'm describing it, it's like, stealth and intrigue stuff, yanno?
  
  Some examples: A mental block that makes it impossible for people to speak or write stuff down, doppelgangers taking the place of other people with perfect disguises, generating darkness and making things hard to see, create a burning mote of light people are forced to stare at, to the extent they're forced to crane their heads around, a power that makes everyone instinctively think someone else performed the actions you just did right in front of them, or a teleporter who only ever teleports just out of people's view.
  
  In this case, it's mostly just the fact that she's inserting her thoughts into people's heads and blocks out their own thoughts with the sheer noise she's projecting, making it hard to concentrate.) who can project her thoughts around her, using them as a brute force weapon to confound or stun groups of people. Relies on offensive uses of the Mind sphere, for the most part, with the project thoughts charm as a little bonus. It's a little awkward because the Parahuman setting's power effects have no innate "willpower" defenses to avoid it, so I purposely came up with a powerset that's a fuzzy on that regard; something people can plausibly withstand and walk away from even if they're slammed directly with it.
  This works well mechanics-wise, but I've had to make sure to pare it down into a tight set, working against the system a little to match the setting. Players should probably come up with ways to justify how a foe succeeds on a Will save against their character's powers, though most will saves still probably work okay, at least the morale-based ones. Might be overstating it, take this with a load of salt.

Edited January 1 by Niblooey
Added examples of parahumans I've devised, and the issues I've encountered (and managed to remember) (see edit history)

[pesukarhu]

That sounds really interesting!

So far, I've used the image-generators for games, but not the text-generation. I know people who've done things like Harry Potter-based interactive stories for their kids, but that is more about flavor than consistency.

I've been thinking about going full RAG and indexing the PDFs of rules and background info for a setting, but parsing PDFs can be a pain (I know folks who used a GNN for just parsing menus), and I'm not sure I want to get into that. I'm actually considering a LLM-heavy gig right now, so maybe I'll try it just for practice.

In any case, I don't know Spheres (is this it?), nor do I know Pathfinder well, nor Worm, so I'm probably not a player, but I'd be super-interested in following along and seeing how it goes.

Edited January 1 by pesukarhu (see edit history)

[ahanna12345]

On 12/31/2023 at 7:00 AM, Butchern said:

Love it! I am running a Fate fantasy game right now where were are more or less doing just this. So far, so good. I don't have time to play in another game (and I suck with Pathfinder), but I'll be watching this with interest to see how it turns out.

Thanks for the interest, I'm excited to see where it will go.

 

 

 

On 12/31/2023 at 1:56 PM, matt_s said:

I think one of the biggest uses of generative AI on MW has been generating character images especially given the relative paucity of (free to use) fantasy art for more obscure images. I personally like using public domain photographs or paintings where I can - something more real about those than other mediums - but have used the version of Dall-E integrated into microsoft copilot as well.

I know Powderhorn (don't like pinging random users into threads) has used ChatGPT to generate lists of provisions for his Worlds Without Number game as well.

There are dedicated generative tools for dungeon layouts. If you tell DALL-E to generate a dnd style dungeon it will give you plenty of floor plans as well. The grid will likely be completely mussed up but pasting into a vector graphics tool (or even roll20 I think does this) and overlaying tokens and a grid will fix that.

I did throw a passage from a post into Copilot and told it to check grammar and I think it came out kind of scuffed for what its worth. Plain old microsoft word is likely better for copy-editing posts.

I will absolutely check that out more AI generation means less work for me as the DM.

23 hours ago, Niblooey said:

Huh. Would using a bot to spit out rough build ideas even work?

Ehh I've been playing with it. It can do low level npcs like level 1-4 pretty well but casters and anything with complexity are a crapshoot. It also frequently invents new talents.

Great questions and problems here and something I've already considered a bit. my solutions are a combination of reskining, accepting some balance over lore-realism and custom traits with the spellcasting/spellcrafting mechanic.

 

23 hours ago, Niblooey said:

Pathfinder Spheres doesn't really mesh well with Parahumans style powers (I came up with a few the last time you proposed this, but I found myself intentionally stretching and constraining stuff or translating mechanics until I hit a result that sorta fits), so I'm worried slamming together a rough build's just gonna end up with something weird or too generic to work with (in the context of the setting, I mean; most parahuman's powers are weird as heck on a conceptual level).

This is something true for all rpgs. HOw accurate can you make your simulation without bogging you down to much in minutia. I think spheres of power does the strongest job of any rpg in giving you the abilty to take a top down idea a character concept and make it into a mechanically viable character. Systems like GURPS does this but i feel that all of the characters feel kind of the same. Spheres I believe gives players and DMs more interesting and engaging ways to make their own characters mechanically. Spheres is also unique in rpgs in having the mechanics work with the roleplaying as well as the combat. I am in love with the spheres of guile and ultimate intrigue supplements, and the ways they make npc conversations much more dynamic.

23 hours ago, Niblooey said:

(I came up with a few the last time you proposed this, but I found myself intentionally stretching and constraining stuff or translating mechanics until I hit a result that sorta fits), so I'm worried slamming together a rough build's just gonna end up with something weird or too generic to work with (in the context of the setting, I mean; most parahuman's powers are weird as heck on a conceptual level).

Uh, for context, some Spheres parahumans I designed. Couldn't find where I put them, so had to refresh my memory a bit. I also decided to add some category descriptions to help people unfamiliar with the setting follow along. You guys don't need to know the categories to make a good cape, it's more an excuse to let people's imaginations get stirred with a bunch of examples.

• a flaw I noticed is that there's no way to be flexible with talent allocation without an ability dedicated to that, so if she needed more than 3-4 talents to cover most material properties, there's a chance she'd be mechanically incapable of using her power on a weird material that she definitely should be able to, thematically speaking.
   
• 
  Think my issue with this was that I worked too hard to come up with mechanics to fit a theme;
   
• , but obtaining those on an otherwise noncaster is finicky (would probably need to houserule something to make it fit). There's also no way to make objects sticky, but that can probably be homebrewed as a Creation sphere Alter talent? Most systems lack this sort of thing though, sticky effects are super niche :3
   
• It's a little awkward because the Parahuman setting's power effects have no innate "willpower" defenses to avoid it, so I purposely came up with a powerset that's a fuzzy on that regard; something people can plausibly withstand and walk away from even if they're slammed directly with it.
  This works well mechanics-wise, but I've had to make sure to pare it down into a tight set, working against the system a little to match the setting. Players should probably come up with ways to justify how a foe succeeds on a Will save against their character's powers, though most will saves still probably work okay, at least the morale-based ones. Might be overstating it, take this with a load of salt.

So let me address these first I'm planning on stripping away all of the fluff from all of the abilities. Only the mechanics will matter, so if you want to reflavor leaves as mist or chains as vines all of that is ok. Also some things from worm like the inviolability of most powers are plain just not balanced mechanically. Heartbreaker for example is basically just an infinite spellslot sorcerer with a spell list of dominate person and all of the other emotion spells without any saves. yes thats true to the story but utterly broken. So for the sake of game balance I was just planning on having saves and everything. If we want I can have villians with powers like that have no saves or just work in other ways, but those sorts of powers are just too strong for players in what is still in part a tactical combat game.

 

But some ideas players have just cant be done with the rules and I want each character to have a feeling of uniqueness that you only get from worm so I'm thinking of a very small amount of homebrew. Each player starting with one of these starting traits. most of them have to do with spellcraft to make a power. This is very much WIP if any of these are over/underpowered It would be easy to change the numbers. Note Choose vs gain. when you gain a talent it is yours like normal. When you choose a talent you get to use it for this ability but not otherwise. I also need to go over the complexity math.

Natural Trigger: Honestly not sure

Gain a Talent. and 3 custom "spells" using the spellcrafting system (Unlike normal, you can use marital, skill, or magic talents, treat as a different sphere but remember the ranges) for 2 spells for your power each with -2 complexity (cannot be reduced below 0)

Grab bag: Gets multiple smaller custom powers (Skill/magic/martial we can mix em and make it work)

Gain a Talent. and 5 custom "spells" using the spellcrafting system (Unlike normal, you can use marital, skill, or magic talents, treat as a different sphere but remember the ranges) for 2 spells for your power each with -1 complexity (cannot be reduced below 0)

2nd Gen Bud: gets a power modified by a talent from another sphere

Gain the spellcrafting feat for 1 spell, Gain a sphere and a talent in that sphere. , Craft 1 spell for your power modified with the chosen talent from without raising the complexity -. (chosen talent has to be from a different sphere then the base spell)

Vial Cape: Gain the spellcrafting feat for 1 spell and you can take 1 advanced talent as if you were 5 levels higher in your build. You also get to use that talent for your 1 spell without raising the complexity.

Case 53 (Monster cape): Choose alteration sphere and 1 alteration talents. choose a shape with up to 3 traits from those talents that is your new base form. (You dont get to use the talents for other things) (I have no idea for the balance on this one, I kind of like it though)

Case 70 (Twins) Gain the Dvarti racial abilities from dnd 3.5. You play as twins, two characters with less health and you have to use both twin's actions to cast a spell, but basically double actions for combat. Fun stuff.

 

 

 

Edited January 2 by ahanna12345 (see edit history)

[ahanna12345]

On 1/1/2024 at 10:07 AM, pesukarhu said:

That sounds really interesting!

So far, I've used the image-generators for games, but not the text-generation. I know people who've done things like Harry Potter-based interactive stories for their kids, but that is more about flavor than consistency.

I've been thinking about going full RAG and indexing the PDFs of rules and background info for a setting, but parsing PDFs can be a pain (I know folks who used a GNN for just parsing menus), and I'm not sure I want to get into that. I'm actually considering a LLM-heavy gig right now, so maybe I'll try it just for practice.

In any case, I don't know Spheres (is this it?), nor do I know Pathfinder well, nor Worm, so I'm probably not a player, but I'd be super-interested in following along and seeing how it goes.

That is indeed spheres. It is a little complicated when you first start but everything is pretty modular and really fits together well. I'll pm you if the game ever gets off the ground.

On 12/31/2023 at 3:30 PM, Powderhorn said:

Without Numbers series

I've never actually heard of this series I'll check it out.

[Powderhorn]

Highly recommend it :) There are links in my signature for the free versions which are fairly robust (but, regrettably, lack the DM tables).

[namo]

This sounds intriguing!
I'm not familiar with Worm (checked out Wikipedia to get the idea), but the biggest obstacle is probably that I shouldn't add another game to my plate. I'm definitely following this though; I'm curious to see what ChatGPT spits out.

1. Interest Check: In theory yes; in practice perhaps not now (cf. above)

2. Silliness Tolerance: Silliness is OK, I think, but incoherence is probably not (e.g. NPCs that act completely different from one post to the next, for no reason), so that would require some babysitting.

3. Setting Preferences: Perhaps not rebuilding, to avoid the pathos; the other two sound fine.
   How messed up and organized should parahumans be? => no particular opinion

4. Player-Centric Storytelling: What questions should I shoot at the players? What themes, elements, or crazy specifics do they want in this trip?
   I'd say the usual: motivations, concrete goals, foils, ... Perhaps via Fate aspects, or via the 10-min background.

[OzzyKP]

1. Interest Check: I'm very interested!!! I've wanted to get into a Spheres game for a while, but they usually are high level, gestalt, overpowered nonsense that I can't get into. 4th-6th level is perfect. I hadn't heard of Worm before, but I just read through the Wikipedia entry and it looks great. Gritty superheros is definitely my jam.

2. Silliness Tolerance: I'm up for moderate chaos. I really like the spark of randomness to inspire our own creativity, but I don't want to try and respond to incoherence, like namo said.

3. Setting Preferences: I'm not very familiar with the setting, so I'm up for anything.

4. Player-Centric Storytelling: I've got no thoughts, but I'm ready for a wild ride.