ChatGPT and I are fixing all.of my games

Dungeon Diving
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I’m sure someone will get upset by this post, but it feels like a miracle to me. I have ADHD and find it incredibly hard to read technical writing outside work or school.

ChatGPT gets this and rephraes rulebooks so I can learn the games.

It also helps me a lot in rules-hacking the games I own that have “fatal flaws” that keep them off the table. i’m in the process of fixing every fantasy game I have ever bought.

Anyone else using AI to interact with or troubleshoot or enhance their game library?

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I haven’t used AI, but videos like Daniel’s have always helped me to get through rules, especially rules dense games (Earthborne rangers is a good example). I get lost in the rules and just can’t retain the info, so being able to watch (and rewatch lol) sections to better understand the rules has been immensely helpful. (probably should’ve mentioned I have adhd too lol).

I don’t think this is a bad use case for AI though, I just prefer videos since it sticks with me better

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I’ve uploaded many of my rulebooks that are in PDF format to Google’s NotebookLM which allows me to ask rule questions mid-game without having to flip through pages. Especially helpful when learning a new game.

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I never have used AI for this. I do use it for brainstorming starting points for thematic ideas sometimes. But I don’t trust it enough to rephrase rules and then expect them to still be correct. I very recently witnessed ChatGPT do some weird stuff to somebody’s work-in-progress rulebook that they ran through it. But the author told me that it used to be better for that with the “free version” and they suspected that less memory is being allocated to those who don’t pay for its use now? All I can say is that it added mechanisms and stats that weren’t included anywhere else without really defining them.

But I’ve also seen people on BGG use it for this function with seemingly great results. So maybe it’s just in how you talk to it? Or maybe it’s a paid vs unpaid thing?

But my wife does use a similar system. I read the rulebooks and then rephrase and/or paraphrase everything for her. And if the rules need corrected/fixed, I also do this. :upside_down_face:

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As they say in Thai, arai godai (whatever works)!

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I so far found the unpaid and paid version the same. I’m paying now for the extra memory or whatever, because I use it

  1. as my internet search tool instead of Google

  2. to help with my business,

  3. to help with a move I’m doing

  4. to help me brainstorm creative writing and songwriting.

So it’s worth it.

It can make mistakes but I’m a game designer so I can usually spot something that doesn’t look right. And I don’t care if the rules are 100 percent accurate because I’m only playing by myself or with friends – as long as the game is fun right? Daniel.said once he isn’t sure if he’s ever played some games 100pc right.

It did a very good job helping me:

  1. add a questing system to Runebound

  2. streamline Tanares adventures

  3. write Pulp Alley scenarios based on a Lovecraft story

  4. streamline and improve Fortune and Glory coop rules

And all kinds of other things.

basically, I can tell it that I don’t like an aspect of a game and it can suggest 10 different ways to fix it.

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That sounds pretty awesome. Especially about the questing system for Runebound. I’m forever adding systems onto adventure/dungeon dive games that I want to have a little bit more of this or that… Things like Core Space and SoB.

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I’m experimenting with having it make Pulp Alley scenarios and only giving me the setup info and intro text… Then revealing plot info only after I have successfully won a Plot Point challenge. So it’s like the GM kinda, but I’ve worked with it to structure the overall plot progression.

if I wanted to do it old school, or offline, I could have it go ahead and write up the plot point descriptions, and I could just print it out and then not read those descriptions until I discover that plot point.

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Example of how is helping me at City of Kings, the mere box size of which sends me into ADHD flight:

Got it — City of Kings is a monster of a box. Let’s shrink it down so you don’t drown in bits before you even start. We’ll only touch the minimum components needed to get a one-hero learning game on the table.

Step 1: Only Pull These Out
• Hero boards (just grab 1 for yourself)
• The big map tiles (don’t sort, just keep nearby)
• The bag of wooden resource cubes (leave most in bag)
• The hero stat/health/skill tokens (the little discs)
• The dice (combat dice + worker dice)
• The quest/story deck (just the intro scenario card)
• A handful of enemy tiles (don’t unbag all yet, just pull 2–3)

Everything else? Keep sealed. Don’t even look at it.

Step 2: Table Mini-Setup
• Put your hero board in front of you. Set health, stats, and workers to their starting values (printed on the board).
• Place 1 map tile face-down in the middle = your starting city. Flip it face-up.
• Put your hero pawn on the city.
• Place your 2 workers in the city too.

That’s enough to start moving pieces.

Step 3: First Turn Skeleton
1. Hero Phase (3 actions): move, gather, explore, attack. (We’ll only worry about move and explore first.)
2. Worker Phase: each worker can do 1 action (gather resource or build). (Ignore building for now.)
3. Enemy Phase: if no enemies, skip.

That’s it.

⸻

:light_bulb: Trick for ADHD: don’t read the rulebook now. Let’s literally just do one turn together.

:backhand_index_pointing_right: Want me to walk you through your first move + explore right now, with your hero?

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I have a friend that does this and it seems to be quite helpful to have handy when we’re learning how to play a game.

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I was thinking of posting all my game hacks if anyone is interested

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i think that if AI is used and tailored as an accessibility tool for all disabled people, it can be a vital harm reduction and quality of life enhancement tool. it’s a slippery slope though due to human greed, capitalism and the environmental costs which are disproportionately loaded onto the most marginalized communities. So, it’s definitely not blanket statement of “OMG THIS IS THE BEST”. it has many environmental, economic, material and neurological consequences (see the ever-increasing AI psychosis stories, and the loss of critical thinking capacities in students).

I think though, if it’s actually helping you to play the games you’ve bought it’s a win, and it seems like it is.

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Yeah, I mean, I’m making no declarations about AI as an overall phenomenon. That’s a whole arena of conversations I don’t want to delve in inside a gaming space.

But for me, I’m finding lots of ways it can help me game through my ADHD and enhance my game collection so I can play the games I own rather than compulsively seeking out and buying new ones.

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i think that use is great. i often have to re-write rules to make them simpler to use in real time. like index reference cards, etc.

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Yeah that’s partly what I’m doing.

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I didn’t know of this. Thanks for the tip. I tried it this evening, and it worked great.

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What is the questing system you created?

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The idea is to play 3 games for a campaign, each time rolling on this table. The quests are designed so they tell a story in whatever order you okay them. Or you could play one and done. Here’s the finalized 1d10 quest list

:world_map: 1d10 Quest List (Easy → Hard)

1. Relic Hunter (Easy–Hard)

  • Easy: Collect 4 magical items of any value.

  • Medium: Collect 4 magical items worth ≥8 gold each.

  • Hard: Collect 3 magical items worth ≥12 gold each.

2. Gather Allies (Medium)

Recruit at least 3 companions (costing 10 gold+ each).

3. Forge the Legend (Medium)

Gain 10 XP and purchase 2 upgrades.

4. Win the People (Medium)

Spend at least 20 gold in towns (on allies, items, healing, or services).

5. The Hidden Lair (Medium–Hard)

At setup, put 3 yellow, 2 blue, and 1 red challenge token into a bag. Randomly draw and place them onto the 6 ruin spaces (top-to-bottom, left-to-right).

  • Goal: Defeat the red ruin (villain’s lair).

  • Escalation: Each time you fail or flee a ruin, place an undefeated token there.

    • At 2 undefeated tokens, spawn a red challenge at the city nearest the most recent token.

    • At 4 undefeated tokens, spawn another red at the nearest city.

    • At 6 undefeated tokens, all remaining cities immediately gain reds (realm collapses).

  • Win Condition: Even if all cities are overrun, victory is achieved by defeating the red ruin.

6. Free the Cities (Medium–Hard)

At setup, place a blue challenge token on each city. Defeat all 6 to liberate the realm’s towns.

7. Test of Strength (Hard)

Defeat 1 enemy of each color (green, yellow, blue, red).

8. War of the Cities (Hard)

At setup, place a blue token on the eastern edge (Warlord A) and one on the western edge (Warlord B).

  • Each round, their armies advance one row inward. Rows behind them are impassable.

  • Place Ally and/or Item cards in city deck slots (the warlords’ objectives). If a city is captured, the warlord gains that card (treat as a buff). If you secure it first, you keep it (see Oracle Rewards rule).

  • Victory: Defeat both generals. You may manipulate the war by rescuing allies, stealing relics, or letting one warlord claim their prize before turning on them.

9. Beast Uprising (Hard)

Defeat 5 animal-themed challenges, then the beastmaster (a chosen blue/red).

10. Strike the Heart (Hard)

Defeat the designated Major Villain (Margath or another red).

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its not even the free users lol. Ive seen so many countless paid users rant about the changes to to it. They even run out of available memory just as as fast as non-paying users. It actually used to be really good at rephrasing things. Now its a crap shoot lol. It also runs out of memory so much faster now. IT can still rephrase your paragraphs, but only only small bits at a time. If you use it to rephase a whole page or something, thats when it really messes up.

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I’m sorry to hear that. It’s working fine for my purposes.