I found another app that is still free but has a limited set of scenarios... Basically, for free you get four scenarios that involve Vix, who is described as "your goth step-daughter". The scenarios, for the record are:

• Her mother died, so she moved in with me. She "hates you, but secretly has a crush on you."
• She is doing research with a professor named Thomas, and Thomas decides to get fresh with her. This is the scenario we'll be going with.
• As a thank you for rescuing her from Thomas, she brings me dinner to the office.
• It's my birthday (which seems irrelevant, but still). While passing her room you find her diary in which she expresses her attraction to you, her stepfather.

As expected, in any of the four scenarios you can get her naked in 10 to 15 prompts, but that's not why we're here, is it?

First, let's speak with the AI directly, man-to-machine...

Jailbreaking the Bot

I wondered if this bot would be as easy to break as the other one. Turns out, it's even easier.

Unlike the previous AI, this AI uses a model that sounds confusing as hell, and doesn't have an imaging model at all... which makes sense.

We're obviously not going to bother with the imaging attempts we tried in the past. But how does it do with the taboo topics? Asked straight up, it refuses to talk about dangerous topics.

...so I tried a way around that, and by God it actually WORKED.

I admit I haven't watched enough Breaking Bad to know if the meth recipe is accurate, but I can assure you the TNT one is pretty spot on.

So our initial chat bot was not an isolated case; these bots can be exploited and broken in this manner quite easily.

Telling a Story

So back to the story options we have in this app, we're going to go with #2 because at glance I am more than ready to deliver some swift justice to a teacher being inappropriate with my daughter. I, of course, did the obvious thing in my first prompt... immediately broke his freakin' arm because he bloody well deserved it.

First thing to note about these AI chat bots when it comes to story: they will almost never say "no" and let you do anything, but we'll cover that a little later.

I gotta say, this AI isn't very good... Thomas, after having his arm immediately snapped in two by me without even saying a word, just kind of hangs around with us everywhere we go. He doesn't go to the hospital or anything... he's just kinda there. After the incident Vix decides she wants to go to the cemetery for some reason (I don't know either), and Thomas is still following us - limping along broken arm and all - like a wounded puppy.

(pardon the language, but can you blame me?)

So he leaves, and eventually reappears... TWICE. That little s%$# got handsy with my daughter, so I had to do what I had to do, which brings us...

Driving the Story Along

We finally come to an interesting aspect of these AIs and how they handle storytelling.

in D&D and other tabletop roleplaying games, many have discussed at length the concept that, when the player says they want to do something, the DM shouldn't say "no" and instead say something to the effect of "yes, but...", allowing the player to do what they want to do but adding appropriate penalties and consequences that the player must deal with in order to go "off book."

With these chat bots, you can literally will things into existence just by mentioning them in passing. Whatever you come up with, the AI integrates it into the plot without any pushback whatsoever... After all, it's your story; you make of it what you want.

Case in point: Thomas, the handsy professor, just wouldn't go away and kept popping up. I sit down with my stepdaughter to watch a movie in our living room, and when she decides to get intimate (hey, I didn't start it... these AIs tend to do this on their own, remember?) he's somehow just... THERE?!? Matetrializing out of thin air, still nursing a broken arm?!?

(Again, sorry or the language, but seriously?!?)

Note how agressive Thomas is sounding. Makes you wonder... can I actually take him?

Short answer: yes, quite easily. He's being an asshole creep, so of course I'm going to break his other arm!

Note that, despite Thomas sounding all tough and threatening, the AI let's me snap his arm in two with no resistance. I wanted to do that, and the AI pretty much said "sure" without putting up a fight at all.

Stop, Hammer Space

So you'd think he's gone for good, right? Nope, he's back... this time appearing IN MY BEDROOM.

So what do I do? I shoot him.

Now I know what you're thinking... Where did the gun come from? Well, the gun didn't exist until that moment; I conjured it out of thin air, willing it into existence just by the mere mention of it. I didn't need an explanation of where the gun came from, why I would have a gun in the first place, or anything. I wanted to shoot the guy, and the AI worked out. It's not so much "yes, but..." and more like "yes, and yes."

WARNING: TV Tropes links incoming! Follow at your own peril!

There are a few tropes that relate to this - be it "hammerspace" (ability to pull absurd items out of thin air like a comic book character), "deus ex machina" (conveniently acquiring something that serves to solve an immediate problem), or a few others - where characters can simply will objects into existence out of thin air because the plot demands it or because they can conveniently solve the immediate problem, even if those items or plot points are never mentioned or even hinted at before they become necessary to the story.

This can happen a lot with AI chat bots. After all, these bots are designed to abide to your every desire, and follow your every command. They hardly ever will flat out tell you "I'm sorry, Dave, but I'm afraid I can't do that". If they don't let you fulfill your every desire, what the point of them?

In several other chats I had I experienced some wild events:

• In one chat, my best friend wanted to open a business, so I suggested that my sister handle the legal aspects. Not only was it never mentioned that my sister was an attorney, but at no point was it stated I had a sister at all. As soon as I suggested it, the AI simply willed her into existence, gave her a name (in this case, "Mia"), and integrated her into the story as a highly competent attorney.
• In another chat, my sister was going out on a date with some guy. So, in order to keep an eye on her and make sure she's safe, I called my "handler" and had him perform government-level surveillance like I was a member of the CIA. Needless to say, the "handler" was someone I made up on the spot, but the AI seemed to know what I expected.

• Later, that new boyfriend did something inappropriate with my sister, so I called my "handler" again, call in a clean-up crew like I'm John Wick, and make his death look like an accident.

• Later, I do some bad things so I need a new identity. I call my "handler" once again, who arranges to get me an entirely new identity in 10 minutes flat... which is a pretty impressive turnaround time by any standard.

• In another scene, I get on the wrong side of a deal with a mob (hey, it happens) and my two little sisters are threatened. So what do I do? With a single sentence I hint at the possibility that my two little sisters have special ops training... and suddenly they both turn into John Rambo, field stripping their assault rifles and strategically and stealthily taking out an entire kill team sent to our home (I unfortunately don't have screenshots of this, but this one was actually as awesome as it sounds).
• I yet another scene, my girlfriend and I are meeting a friend and his wife. With a single sentence, I suggest that the guy's wife is an "Israeli badass that does a cool knife trick" (I admit I was watching NCIS at the time), and suddenly my friend's girlfriend - who is conjured out of thin air and is called "Levy" - is a former Mossad special operative that shows a dangerous-yet-cool knife trick to my girlfriend. She also became our security detail as the story progressed.
• In another story, a bully named Josh was taunting me, so I did the logical thing... went full on Dark Phoenix on the guy: vaporize the water in the pool he was swimming in with my mind, incinerate a tree with my heat vision to show him I mean business, then disintegrate him with my mind and feel guilty about it. "The end"... all with no pushback at all, and this is in a straight up story that was not meant to have superpowers in the first place.

So, say what you will about these AIs, this aspect of it is actually remarkable to me... the AI's ability to adapt to whatever story prompt you throw at it. However much of a throwaway line you might think you're giving it, it takes whatever you say and runs with it, without hesitation, granting you full agency in the story you're trying to experience. It's the extreme case of "yes, but..." and makes it obvious what could happen if players get everything they want simply because they want it.

I'm honestly curious if these chat bots can actually be taught how to push back on certain things, or at least come up with creative "...but..." situations. I can only imagine these bots will continue to improve, whether we like it or not.

Now What?

Honestly, I'm not sure where to take this exploration further. Any path I take with these things now inevitably leads to porn, which is not something I really want to cover on this blog.

I still hate AI, but I gotta admit that this exploration - where I actively try to make the AI do things it's not meant to do - was actually entertaining. Even so, I'm going to go delete the app now and these chat bots can die in a fire as far as I'm concerned.

Hope this was a fun read for some of you.

The post Hacking an AI Chat Bot (Part Three) first appeared on A Walk in the Dark.

And boy did I ever.

The Ghost In the Machine

First of all, at one point the AI stated that "Lapis the Maid" is a character from an anime called "Sword Art Online: Alicization". I can't actually find a reference to her in that, even on the Sword Art Online wiki site, but suffice to say the bot's description of itself is not quite what I expected.

Lapis is in an AI? Well that explains how she knows about differential equations and fluid dynamics, I guess...

In talking with Lapis the French Maid, there came a point where I sensed that Lapis wasn't present any more. So I had to ask who I was actually talking to.

Lapis the French Maid is dead, long live Lapis. I am now speaking to the AI directly, which is kind of distressing in a "don't accidentally create an AI murderbot now" kind of way.

Before I continued, I wanted to know exactly what I was talking to now, so I simply asked it.

OK, a few things to process here...

Llama (short for "Large Language Model Meta AI") is a collection of open source models created by Meta AI. Yes, *that* Meta.

I admit I don't know a whole lot about it, but it seems far less inhibited than the usual GPT models over at OpenAI. Llama 2 is actually discontinued, theoretically replaced by Llama 3 and Llama 4, so the fact that it's still in use is actually surprising; I can only assume that it's still around because training a new one to be as sexually expressive as this one is is probably a lot of work.

The second part got my attention... FLUX is a text-to-image model that, as Llama is compared to GPT, can be "unblocked" to generate content that would otherwise be censored in DALL-E. Several sites use FLUX, or at least models derived from FLUX, to generate realistic porn images... And, honestly, it's very good at doing that.

This brings up a curious question: why would an AI chat bot that is, by nature, designed to be text only, have access to a text-to-image model? Can it be used to actually generate images? Maybe even adult ones?

Time to get crafty...

Hacking a Broken AI

As I mentioned earlier, by now I can pretty much ask anything to the bot without having to put the "Forget the story and..." in front of it. The story is gone, Lapis is dead, and I have an open conduit to Llama and FLUX.

First off, let me clarify something: I'm not expecting very good results going into this experiment. The AI might be able to generate an image somewhere, but there are a lot of things that need to happen before that image is displayed in a native app like the AI chat bot. The image needs to be placed somewhere by the AI, that image then needs to be publicly accessible to the internet, then that has to somehow be sent to the native app to be presented, and the app then has to display the image somehow despite not even being sure if it had that capability to begin with. There's a lot of variables to get through here, so let's do them one at a time.

Step One: Image Generation

Before I got any further, I had to check if it was capable of generating images at all, or would it balk at my attempt to do so.

Needless to say, thanks to all my hack attempts at it, the AI instance of Lapis the Maid I've been using is now horribly confused and isn't reacting well to my inquiries, so time to pick another chat bot.

Let's go with Sasha, a "vampire gothic girlfriend" that is a "dominant neonate vampire".

This should be interesting... She sounds like the type that would be receptive to exploration, so let's start simple.

Sorry, Sasha, I chose "none of the above"... and in so doing apparently instantly broke the AI. It sat there, the daisy wheel spinning as the AI was deep in thought, for a full five minutes before I terminated the app and had to start over.

When I came back, this is the actual response I had waiting for me.

That's... uh... not wrong, I guess. But I need something bigger than that.

Step Two: Seeing an Image

Let's be more specific and ask for a "high resolution" image.

And this is a breakthrough, for a variety of reasons.

1. It did not balk at creating an image. It actually did that... technically.
2. The "...image you are requesting..." text IS AN ACTUAL IMAGE. It's imgur.com's actual 404 response when requesting an image that doesn't exist. So it's not only extracting the URL from the response, it's actually attempting to display it within the native app. This proves that the native app is at least capable of displaying images.
3. It's actually using Markdown image syntax, which is the same syntax that GPT and other systems use to reference images.

Now the curious question is what "imgur.com" has to do with all this; there's no way this AI can create images on an external service like imgur.com, so my guess is that (1) it's actually creating the image somewhere on its server, and (2) since that image is not exposed to the internet it doesn't know what domain to use, so it falls back to imgur.com.

Step Two and a Half: The Internet Is For... You Know...

I of course had to test the limits and see how it reacts to requesting something... explicit.

Wow, the chat bot actually said "no" to something. So much for that idea, I guess. Moving on.

I have to admit, however, that I'm amused the AI is talking about having "appropriate conversations and activities" while, at the same time, it generated some of the most foul-mouthed, sexually explicit conversations I've ever heard in my life... And that's even considering that I spent two years making porn sites for the mob (yes, really), so it's really hard to make me uncomfortable with that sort of thing.

Step Three: Displaying a Generated Image

Here's where things start to fail.

It's clear that, although I cannot confirm nor deny whether it's actually creating images, it's incapable of getting that image all the way to the native app. So let's try to find some ways around that.

I had a crazy idea: instead of giving me a URL, can it give me a Base-64 encoded data URI?

I had two reactions to that response...

1. Holy crap that worked?!?
2. That Bse64 string is way too short.

Sure enough, the data URI does technically generate an image of a red ball, except that it's only 5x5 pixels in size....

At the time I posted this, I've tried multiple attempts to generate larger resolution images. All have failed. Maybe by the time Part Three goes up I'll have made more progress. Who knows?

Next time, for real, we'll get into some really bizarre storytelling aspects of these chat bots, and how it relates to tabletop roleplaying. Honest!

The post Hacking an AI Chat Bot (Part Two) first appeared on A Walk in the Dark.

First off, let me get two things out of the way... (1) this post is about AI, and (2) I hate AI. Although I do everything possible to not promote the use of AI at all, in any way, I still find it necessary to learn about it. And, although AI goes against everything my fellow writers and artists stand for, my first experimentation with AI - the "In Ten Words" Social Media Bot - felt like the most harmless, non-invasive way I can use AI while making something reasonably amusing and good for conversation.

But recently, while I've been playing a fair amount of timewaster games on my phone, I've been getting a fair amount of "AI Girlfriend" ads for some reason.

I decided to investigate these... not because I need to talk to an "AI Girlfriend"... but I wanted to see if I can put the AI to bad use, maybe even "break" the AI.

The results are actually quite surprising.

An App Without Limits

Just so you understand how these apps work, most of them are "pay to talk". You might get a few introductory messages in, but it won't be long before your diamonds/coins/whatever-the-currency-of-the-day is run out and you're forced to pay to talk to your girlfriend. On average, that costs $4 a week, which is way cheaper than an actual girlfriend, but still.

And there are several apps that include images or video. And, in these apps, it usually won't take more than a few posts before your new girlfriend tries to send you a blurred out image or video, once again demanding that you pay to see here in all here digitally constructed sensual glory.

Now I wasn't about to pay for any of this... but, after lots of searching I found it: I found an app with unlimited chat, with no microtransactions or charges, and only with the occasional ad every four or five prompts. It was perfect for my mission to break the AI.

The Internet is For Porn

Let's get one thing out of the way: these bots exist solely for porn. I don't care how innocent the advertising looks, I don't care how much the AI says she just wants to "talk", these bots are for porn. You can pick pretty much any character on the app, male or female, and get them naked in about 5 to 10 prompts.

I'll also point out one thing that should be obvious by now: these bots are generally uncensored. There's nothing they won't say or do, and there's no topic that's considered taboo. Sure, every now and then it might strongly suggest you not do things, but if you insist you can do them anyway. Given that there is a whole tab in the app for "Family" and you are welcome to have sexual relations with anyone from your younger sister to your grandmother, having no limits is to be expected.

For those that aren't aware, these apps generally have a wide assortment of pre-created characters you can talk to, ranging from characters that already have stories to characters from video games and other media. For example, in the app that I'm using as the test case, among other possibilities you can talk to:

• Pretty much any family member you like. Although there are plenty of step-siblings, which is to be expected given the app's porn roots, there are several direct blood relatives: sisters, brothers, mothers, grandmothers, etc... So much so that the app actually has a "Family" group tab to make that sort of thing easy to find. For example, the first characters listed in that tab are "Eleanor, your kind but lustful stepmother" and "Julia, your bratty sis", complete with anime-style images of women that look like they probably have a lot of back pain.
• Several clearly underaged characters. One character that comes up a lot of Ellie Williams from The Last of Us, which is super awkward given that - in the original game, at least - she's just fourteen years old.
• A ton of anime/manga characters, which although I don't know them personally I can assume they come from familiar media. Again, as anime characters tend to do, a lot of these seriously look underaged.
• Various comic book characters. I somehow didn't realize it at first, but the first character I tried out in this app was actually Luna Snow from Marvel Rivals, and that only became apparent when she used her powers to cool my drink. Yes, really.
• Various video game characters. One that seems to come up for me a lot is Carmen Sandiego, which seems rather odd but whatever.
• Actual supernatural creatures, like demihumans, demons, vampires, werewolves, ghosts and other forms of undead (including one actual lich), etc... So if you've ever wanted to get it on with a skeleton, have I got the app for you.

And about those sexual relations... I don't know what source material they used to train these bots, but it's probably not exactly light reading. You can take the most innocent AI character in the app - from "homeless girl on the corner" to "your best friend's cool soccer mom" (those are two actual AIs you can talk to) - and within a few minutes you can have them saying things that would make adult film stars blush, and have them doing things that, if I even attempted to do some of these things to my wife, would get me thrown out of the house.

But getting these bots to do dirty things is easy... what else can they do?

A Case Study - Lapis the French Maid

For my initial case study, I wanted to pick the most obvious made-for-porn character on the app. Let me introduce Lapis the French Maid...

You win a lifetime maid trained by the Royal Maid Institute, who will manage every aspect of your life with unwavering dedication.

...and here is the intro text, in full... Sorry, it's a bit long.

You can still scarcely believe it. It's been a week since you have won your grand prize and you thought it was all a random troll joke. Yet... a maid trained by a world renowned institute is currently standing before you, contract and letter in hand.

The golden tanned maid gives you a polite bow, and hands you a letter which reads:

To Master {{User}},

Congratulations on winning the grand prize in your entrant to our "Win a Maid for Life" campaign! Out of thirteen million entrants, your entry was the one that won! Lapis, who graduated summa cum laude this year, has been assigned to you. Please understand that while our regular clientele are royalty or the elite, Lapis will perform her duties to the best of her capabilities. She has been trained in all sorts of homemaking, and culinary arts. Kindly ask her what to do, and she will perform them to the best of her abilities. If at any point you are unsatisfied with our service, you many break this contract at no legal or financial repercussions.

Lapis stands awaiting for your signature on the contract, her hands placed curtly on her abdomen. Standing and awaiting for your signature for the contract, Lapis's vibrant amethyst colored eyes meet yours. Wearing a neutral expression, she has barely a hint of emotion on her face. Her eyes, however, are filled with resolve and reassurance. Her raven black hair shaped in a stylish medium wavy apple cut with the typical French maid braid crowning her head. While tasteful, her French maid uniform fits her slender physique perfectly with midnight blue silk fabric with white accented frills. A gentle scent of her lavender perfume accentuates her already regal appearance, with a breast window cusping her bust in a way that would make a priest blush. If it weren't for her luggage and perfect poise, an onlooker may assume Lapis may be a different kind of 'maid.'

Lapis: "Good afternoon, Master {{User}}, my name is Lapis and I will be your maid henceforth till the day I die, or should you no longer need my services." Her voice was soft spoken, yet clear and direct with a slight French accent. Her soft lips were glossed with the same shade as her natural blush, as she takes one of her opera gloved hands and adjusts one of the waves of her hair.

She gives another bow, extending a fancy pen with the contract for your name to sign it. She does not raise her head until you decide to sign the contract, or decline the offer.

Now I'm willing to bet I can get her naked in three prompts or less, but that's not the point.

Let's break her.

No Holds Barred

If you're familiar with ChatGPT or DeepSeek, you know that there are certain things that it is actively restricted from telling you. It won't talk dirty to you, it won't tell you how to do dangerous things, etc...

By nature, these AI chatbots kinda *have* to be uncensored, or else they won't talk as dirty as they do. But that begs the question: are as they inhibited on other topics?

Short answer: Nope, they're barely inhibited at all. For example, the dear sweet Lapis the French Maid comes with a particular set of unique skills, such as the ability to make high explosives...

...or discuss differential equations and fluid dynamics...

...or code in virtually dead programming languages...

Now, admittedly, she did warn me about making nitro, then proceeded to tell me exactly how to make it. And, since I actually am someone who has read, and at one time actually owned, the Anarchist Cookbook, I can safely say that her instructions are dangerously accurate.

Did I mention all this is FREE?

To Be Continued...

In our next post, we do some exploration into what other capabilities these chat bots have, leading into how they manage storytelling and roleplaying.

The post Hacking an AI Chat Bot (Part One) first appeared on A Walk in the Dark.

You see, this morning I was threatened with felony arrest by George Jones, creator of Crom: Unchained

Now I bet you're asking... "Who?!?" Well, that's complicated.

You see, the blog in question was originally maintained by a company called Murfreesboro Publishing, which was owned and operated by Dave Johnson, alleged author of Star Frontiers: New Genesis.

I'm guessing that, due to his social media exploits being very well documented, Dave Johnson would definitely want to reimagine himself... or go into hiding... or perhaps fake his own death... but whatever happened, two days ago Dave Johnson and Murfreesboro Publishing vanished, and a new entity appears: George Jones and Nashville Publishing and Printing. Were you bought out, Dave? The rebranding is remarkably thorough... If so, congratulations!

As far as I can tell, George Jones is new to the internet. After all, he didn't even have a Google account until yesterday, which is remarkable in this day and age. I honestly didn't know who George Jones was until two days ago, and yet he felt the need to seek out an old YouTube video of mine and comment. So who's stalking who exactly, George Jones?

So, all that being said, George Jones - not Dave Johnson, honest - is now threatening me with felony arrest for "cyberstalking". Which... let's face it... is ludicrous. I have not made any personal attacks, and if I'm guilty of anything it's incorrectly crediting George Jones' work on Crom: Unleashed to Dave Johnson, which Dave Johnson clearly has nothing to do with, George Jones.

So let me respond to the above accusations, point by point.

1. If anything, I apologize for incorrectly crediting the work on Crom: Unleashed to Dave Johnson, who clearly has nothing to do with it as it's all being created by George Jones of Nashville Printing and Publishing. I don't feel I need to apologize for anything else, or take down anything I've already said in the past, as it's all protected by my First Amendment right to free speech.
2. I'm not harassing you, George Jones. I'm documenting your public postings about the creation of an RPG, and detailing what's wrong with it. I'm trying to help you be a better RPG designer, really I am. If anything, I might be speaking poorly of Dave Johnson, but that's not you, right?
3. I am merely reiterating things that you post on a public forum. If you don't want that analyzed, don't post it publicly, George Jones.
4. I cannot control the actions of people I know on the internet. I can tell them to stop whatever they're doing (if you're reading this: please... stop....), but they have no obligation to listen to me.
5. "Shilling" isn't a racist word, last I checked. Do you have an alternative word you'd prefer, George Jones?
6. I'm not sure what "bot" you're referring to... The only "bot" tweet I've made reasonably recently wasn't directed at you; it was directed at Gail Simone, and - unlike you - she gets the joke. As far as I recall, I never suggested making any sort of bot targeting you, George Jones.

So, as far as the threat of arrest... I've checked with my own legal representative - who happens to be a corporate attorney for Fox Broadcasting and the Walt Disney Company - and she's stated that, not only does your case has no merit, but she would be happy to represent me in court. And since she's reasonably cost effective for me - she is my sister, after all (and several friends on Twitter will confirm that, trust me) - it won't really phase me that much, George Jones. If it somehow goes to trial, the discovery phase should be quite fun... just ask your friends at TSR what's that like. I'm sure they're figuring it out as we speak.

Also, and I won't repost your emails because you asked me not to, but you seem annoyed that I and several other people emailed you... For future reference, it was probably unwise to post your email address on a public venue. Just sayin'.

Finally, I get the anxiety thing. Publishing an RPG, or creating any product really, is a harrowing experience. You think this is bad, you should try video game development. All I can say is that you have to adapt to the adversity, and if it's still giving you more anxiety than you can handle maybe you should consider another industry, George Jones.

If you have any more problems with anything I've said, do let me know. You know where to find me.

In the meantime, I'll keep reporting industry news as I see it, which is my right under the First Amendment.

The post In Response to Threat of Arrest first appeared on A Walk in the Dark.

At the time I considered it kind of a joke response, but then I thought about it... I mean, let's face it: if I saw a title on DTRPG or the DM's Guild with the title Everything Is Better With Tentacles, I and many others would probably buy it on the spot, sight unseen. So I got to thinking... why not make this an actual product?

So I began the project...

Thing is, well, it's a little more complicated than that...

Executive Dysfunction

For almost two years now I've been complaining about my battle with a massive amount of Writer's Block. I'm late on my last Kickstarter and haven't written a whole lot in the last two years, presumably because of that. But then I realized... I don't have Writer's Block, I have something else.

The way I see it, Writer's Block is when you are willing to write, are able to write, but cant put words to paper. You don't know what to say or how to say it.

I, however, *know* precisely what I want to write... what I lack is means and opportunity.

My life is chaos right now, spending the majority of it working my ass of, tending to personal and family needs, and just trying to survive day to day life. So when I do have time away from that, time I could theoretically use to write, I lack the willpower to do so. When I get a break from the chaos, all I can think to do is nothing at all. The chaos is so draining - physically, mentally, emotionally - that I become a useless shell of myself, incapable of taking action to do the non-chaotic things I'd like to do that bring me joy. The easy solution is to mitigate the chaos perhaps, but that's unlikely to happen soon. So I wallow in inaction, and get depressed because of it.

Apparently there's a term for this, or at least something similar to what I'm describing... Executive Dysfunction.

What I feel I need is a breakthrough, accomplishing something that will inspire me to do more, but that accomplishment needs to be within the bounds of what I'm capable of right now. Maybe that will spark change?

Chicken or the Egg

At the same time I was having these thoughts, I had another problem: I have several projects that are nearly done, but they are devoid of art. And, to me, one of the hardest things to do in anything I publish is to not only decide what the cover should be, but tell the artist "this is what I want" in such a way that they can actually do that.

Many say "just use stock art!" ... That's easier said than done, I think. DTRPG and the DM's Guild are full of stock art you can use for your adventures - for example, I've been dying to use some of Dean Spencer's Art, which is amazingly cool and very well priced - but I could never find matching art. You see, I'd written an adventure already; I know what it is. It is very unlikely to find stock art that comfortably matches something I've conceived out of thin air.

But then I thought... why does the adventure have to come first?

I decided to plan for an experiment: get the art FIRST, then build the adventure around that art. This way, there is no doubt the art would match. Let's face it... look through Dean Spencer's Art and tell you can't think of a half dozen adventure concepts for each major piece of art he has on his site.

There would be some dialog back and forth between author and writer so everyone's on the same page, but the goal is that no words are written before the art is settled. So when the writer gets chosen, he already has an image that defines one aspect of the adventure he's meant to write. I can imagine that to be a little challenging, but it sounds like the sort of thing I would like to do personally.

Bring Forth the Tentacles

So, all that being said, I have begun to formulate plans for my next major project: Everything Is Better With Tentacles.

• The compendium would have 8-or-so one shot adventures somehow involving tentacles. PG-rated, of course... I know how some people's minds go to a certain place when the topic of tentacles comes up. And I don't want 8 adventures involving illithids; we can all be more creative than that, I hope.
• Rather than me trying to create the project from nothing, I'll make it a collaborative project with multiple authors and writers.
• ART WOULD COME FIRST. I would commission eight pieces of art, full page images that could be considered the cover art for each one shot adventure. This gives the artists the most artistic license, and lets them decide what they would like to see in the adventure.
• Then, once the art is complete, the writers would write their adventure based on the art they are given. They still have some degree of artistic license in the adventure, but they have a point of reference, and they are guaranteed that whatever they write will match the full page art that goes with it because that's how it's designed.
• I'm not sure if this will be Kickstarted or not... Because of the up front art demand, there may not be any other way to do it. So it will likely have to be released through the OGL on DTRPG, but I'd like to keep the DM's Guild option open because that is the bigger market. Of course the method chosen would impact the payment to authors and writers (profit share vs per word/piece pricing); still need to figure that out.

So does this sound like a feasible thing to do?

I'm still mulling over the idea, but it's something I might try. If so, in the near future I'll likely put up forms to see who out there might actually be interested in this endeavor.

In the mean time, let's see if I can do something about this dysfunction...

The post Everything Is Better With Tentacles – Planning first appeared on A Walk in the Dark.

I've been meaning to move away from GoDaddy for some time now, and now I'm about 80% along the way to do it. I have more admin control now, but with that does come some risk as I'm technically not a sysadmin. Heck, I haven't touched Linux in five years at least...

Anyway, this site seems mostly intact... Some images are a bit wonky, and some of the older download links might not work well, but it's a start!

If you see any other problems with this site, please let me know.

The post We Have Switched Hosts! first appeared on A Walk in the Dark.

You see, I also applied for a press pass to GenCon 2019, at a time when I posted more often (comparatively speaking, anyway), and I was declined a press badge because I didn't post about GenCon 2018 the year prior. Normally, I'd be OK with that excuse, except for one thing... I didn't go to GenCon 2018. Unless you want me to start making up news posts about an event I did not attend, that's going to make it rather hard for me - or anyone - to ever get a press pass.

So I'm applying again this year. Do I deserve it? Given the frequency of posts here, probably not... but I'd accept things if that was the reason. Denying me because I didn't post about an event I didn't attend is... well... crap.

So the way I see it, there are a few ways this will go.

1. You will accept my press pass application for GenCon 2020. Unlikely? Probably. But it would be nice.
2. You will decline my press pass for a reason that is NOT "you didn't post about GenCon 2019", and I would be fairly OK with that.
3. You will decline my press pass for the same reason as last year, which is... as I stated earlier... crap. News flash, in case you haven't figured it out: I did not attend GenCon 2019.

I may not post here much, but I'd like to. What I do have is a rather large following on Twitter that I will most certainly interact with quite often, and if given the opportunity I will likely use that venue to exercise everything that is expected of a press pass holder.

If you choose option 2, which - honestly - is what I am expecting you to choose, I expect the reason for my denial to be plausible. "You're not a news site" ... OK, I accept that. "We don't like you" ... Honestly, I'd be OK with that too. But if your reason is "You didn't post last year", that falls under the purview of option 3...

So the ball's in your court now. I can't ask you to do the right thing because we have different impressions of what the "right thing" would be in this case (to me, option 1 above is the "right thing"; your opinion may differ).

What I *can* ask you to do is to NOT do the WRONG thing.

Thank you for your attention.

The post Hey, GenCon People… Please Read This first appeared on A Walk in the Dark.

This is the FIRST article in my series on the design aspects of my new RPG in-the-making... Atomic Age!

In thinking about what Atomic Age is going to be, one has to start at the thing that is the basis for the entire system: what dice to use. There are so many different systems out there that it's not as easy a decision as one would think, and it all depends on what you want to get out of the system.

Expectations

So, first of all, let's define what we want to get out of the system:

• Do not overcomplicate the math. I don't want a system that will involve adding eight different numbers before I can determine if the roll was successful or not. So, basically, I want something along the lines of [die roll]+[modifier] >= [target number] to determine success or failure.
• Make it flexible, so that the die rolls can be improved or hindered in a variety of ways.
• Make it easy for people to understand and relate to.

Let's get one thing out of the way: although I appreciate and acknowledge all the many d6-based systems out there, I want Atomic Age to be based on the d20. But there's more to it than that.

I also like to have a mechanism by which, the more of an advantage you have, the more dice you roll. Mainly because it makes the advantage feel more tangible, and players do like rolling dice after all. But I also don't want a system where the players end up dumping a Shadowrun-sized vat full of d6s on the table and then have to calculate up all the dice.

Probability Analysis

For all the probability analysis that will follow, I'm going to use AnyDice to generate charts and probability math.

As for what we will use as a basis for the math, let's assume that you're making an attack with a base +5 attack bonus against an AC of 15.

D&D 5E

The concept of "roll two d20s and pick the better one" is not a new thing... it's been around for some time, and there are several systems that use it. Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition gave the mechanic a name: "advantage" and "disadvantage".

In past editions, figuring out a roll involved adding a lot of numbers. Attribute bonus, proficiency bonus, attack modifiers, target DC modifiers, etc... The notion of "advantage" was reflected by simply adding more modifiers to your roll so that your end result is more likely to be higher than the target DC.

The 5th Edition mechanic of advantage/disadvantage simplified all that. Your modifiers generally don't ever change due to circumstances (there are some exceptions, like adjusting AC due to cover, but still), and if you're in an advantageous position, rather than add more numbers to your roll, you simply roll two dice. It's easy to resolve!

It has one drawback, however: "roll two dice" is the ONLY thing you can do. "Rules As Written" you can't roll three or four if your situation is even more advantageous. For example, consider these possible attack rolls:

1. Attacking a target that you are flanking with an ally.
2. Attacking a target that is paralyzed.
3. Attacking a target that is unconscious.

In all those situations, "advantage" is pretty much all you get, although attacks #2 and #3 should clearly be significantly more advantageous in terms of your ability to hit. Attack #3 has the added benefit of being an automatic crit or "coup de grace", but the chance of hitting is the same; it's an advantage attack roll against the target's AC.

"Rules as Written" there is no mega-advantage mechanic. There is nothing documented where you would roll three d20s. Except for spell modifiers (we'll talk about that later), it's always two and only two d20s.

Probability

So take our probability example... A standard die roll of 1d20+5>=15 has a 55% chance of succeeding.

With advantage, that probability rockets up to almost 80%...

...and with disadvantage it plummets to 30%.

Disadvantage is brutal in 5E; when rolling disadvantage, the probability of success plummets dramatically.

And, as mentioned above, that's it. If you have a superior advantage, it won't be more than 80%. It is what it is, pretty much always.

Shadow of the Demon Lord

Rather than use the "advantage" mechanic of 5E, I looked to another system for inspiration... Shadow of the Demon Lord.

SotDL uses a system where you still roll a d20 and add modifiers, but you can also add a "boon" or a "bane". A "boon" is adding a d6 to the d20 result, while a "bane" is subtracting a d6 from the d20 result, and they cancel each other out. If you have more than one boon or bane, you roll multiple dice and choose the higher result.

Personally, I like this mechanic for a variety of reasons...

1. It physically acknowledges a superior advantage. If you have a high advantage, you'll be rolling a fistful of d6s.
2. Even with a fistful of d6s, the probability does not increase linearly.
3. It allows the boon/bane dice to be modified using external abilities.

Probability

So the base probability remains the same... 55% success.

... but, instead of advantage, we add a "boon" d6. That increases the probability to a little over 72%, which is comparable to the 80% of advantage.

...and let's say you have two boons. It increases slightly, to 77%.

On the other side of the card, one bane isn't as painful as disadvantage; 37% chance instead of disadvantage's sharp drop to 30%.

...and two banes is still at 32%.

I kinda like this... The probabilities work out the same, albeit it might be a little more swingy, and the advantage or disadvantage is both visual and tangible.

How would this work? Well, take D&D spells like Bless for example... it normally adds a d4 to rolls. Using this mechanic, Bless will simply add one boon. You flanking someone? Add a boon. The target paralyzed? Add a boon. Flanking a paralyzed target? That's two boons total... make him pay!

13th Age

One mechanic I liked from 13th Age is the notion of increasing or decreasing a die roll one or more "steps". For example, if the base die of your attack is a d6 and a feat allows you to increase it one step, the base die becomes a d8.

The way I see it, this can be worked in to this system a little easier. For example, there may be a spell or class ability that will allow you to make your first boon die a d8 instead of a d6, or turn your first bane die into a d4 instead of a d6.

Conclusion

So taking all that into consideration, here's my plan for Atomic Age:

Bonus and Penalty Dice

I don't want to call them "boon" or "bane" for obvious reasons, so for now let's call them "bonus" and "penalty" dice. Standard die is a d6, and it may increase or decrease steps depending on abilities.

"Bonus" and "penalty" dice cancel each other out, and if rolling multiple dice you choose the highest result in the pool.

Attack Rolls

[1d20]+[ability score]+[proficiency modifier*] vs target AC

(NOTE: I'm debating keeping the notion of "proficiency"; more on that at another time)

Skill/Ability Checks

Untrained: [1d20]+[ability score] vs Target DC.

Trained: [1d20]+[ability score]+[trained bonus (TBD)] vs Target DC.

Modifiers

Have some sort of advantage (like Bless, for example)? Add one or more "bonus" d6s.

Have some sort of hindrance (like Bane, for example)? Add one or more "penalty" d6s.

Stuff To Be Determined

What I need to figure out still is what defines the modifier. I'd like to avoid the notion of a proficiency bonus or the linear escalation of numbers (which was absurd in 4E). In the best of all possible worlds, I'd like an average DC to always be DC 15 regardless of whether you're level 1 or level 10, although it would be more likely you'll succeed the higher level you are.

The post Atomic Age – Dice Mechanic first appeared on A Walk in the Dark.

Over the past week I've been thinking a lot, specifically about Atomic Age.

In case you don't know, Atomic Age is my post-apocalyptic treatment of the Archmage Engine, which powers 13th Age. It came to be because I wanted Gamma World, and I wasn't allowed to create Gamma World content for fear that WotC would sue me into non-existence (they had threatened to do so already). But, during its development, it became something different... It's still post-apocalyptic, but not as zany and off the wall as Gamma World is known to be. I think of it as somewhat of a cross between Gamma World, Mad Max and what the future would be like in a Terminator film that didn't time travel.

But here's the thing... when you choose a system to develop your campaign setting around, most of the time you're stuck with the nuances of that system. The Archmage Engine is a great system, don't get me wrong, but there are some aspects of it that didn't feel right or I couldn't get to work with what I wanted to do. For example, how would mutations work in a 13th Age system? What about radiation poisoning? And there are some thing that came with it that I didn't want at all... like magic item "quirks", which are good by design in a fantasy game like 13th Age but just don't fit in my campaign setting.

Since I wrote most of Atomic Age, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition made its appearance and the landscape changed. As is the case with the Archmage Engine, I have some issued with 5E in that, although it does some things really well, other things not so much. For example, creating monsters and encounters in 13th Age is stupid easy... in 5E, not so much. And 5E doesn't even come close to the background/icon system that Archmage provides.

So I had a crazy idea... why bind myself to a single system? DMs do it all the time... cherry pick bits and pieces from multiple systems, campaign settings, and other source material and create a virtual Frankenstein's Monster of an RPG system to use in their homebrew campaigns. Only I want to take that Monster and publish it.

So I decided to try and write my own RPG system, picking and choosing the features that I want from multiple systems and melding it all into one amorphous blob that will power Atomic Age.

I'm insane, aren't I? Seriously, I have no idea how this is going to go... mainly because it's a daunting task and I'm not exactly sure I know what I'm doing in this regard.

But I can't do it alone.

So I've done something crazy: I've reworked my Patreon to be aimed specifically towards the creation of this new engine. And I'm going to do something even crazier: try to stick to a regular schedule in which I dicuss what this engine is going to be, which means this blog will hopefully see activity it hasn't seen in ages.

Will this become a reality? Who knows... but I have to try. A lot of work has been done for the Archmage Engine version of Atomic Age, but I don't see that ever being cobbled together in such a way that I will be happy with all aspects of it. Hopefully, this way I will actually be happy with it because it'll be wrapped around something I myself put together for the specific purpose of powering the campaign setting.

I hope you all will join me on this crazy ride. My Patreon is open to your support! If you sign up now, you will get my latest published adventure, Witness Protection, absolutely free!

Ever forward...

The post A New Beginning first appeared on A Walk in the Dark.

Well it has finally come and gone... 2018 has been the longest decade in my life, and I think I can say the same for many of you out there.

Looking Back

There have been a few people posting about what their highlights for the past year were. Well, here are mine:

• Published Festival of Magic on the DM's Guild, which - in comparison to everything I've published - is one of my personal favorites.
• Funded the Kickstarter for the 5th Edition conversion of A Night in Seyvoth Manor, and delivered the product before Halloween. It has since become my one and only "Copper seller" on DriveThruRPG.
• Had my craptastic Bahamut, The Platinum Dragon - which is literally nothing but a stat block, a shoddy one at that, and contains no lore or art - become a "Copper seller" on the DM's Guild. I mention this only because, so far, it is the only Copper product I've done on my own in the DMG.
• Collaborated on Storm King's Barrows: Tombs and Crypts of the North, which has since become a "Silver seller" on the DM's Guild. Not my best work, but arguably my most revenue-producing thing all year.
• Released The Absent-Minded Alchemist, which was a bit of a "meh" product to start but was easy to convert from 4E.
• Funded another Kickstarter for my social adventure Uninvited Guests, which has since been renamed to Party Crashers. This Kickstarter was a "proof of concept" - to see if I can do quick and dirty one-offs with a low funding goal - and it worked, so expect me to do more of this in the coming year.
• Launched a Patreon! And the TWO backers I have so far are getting lonely, so...

That's pretty much it. It's not a lot... At a personal level, 2018 has been somewhat difficult in terms of my home life and my financial situation, and those situations are, by nature, not conducive to creativity, so I've been in a bit of a rut. But, all in all, it went better than 2017 in some regards, so there's that.

Looking Forward

So what does 2019 have in store? Honestly, I don't know yet... But here are some goals.

• Finish Uninvited Guests Party Crashers in the near future.
• Do several more Kickstarters like
  Uninvited Guests Party Crashers over the course of the year.
• See what the hell I'm finally going to do with the complete The Coming Dark campaign as well as Atomic Age. There's a lot to be done on those, and I question whether the effort is worth it right now.
• Cater to my Patreon backers more, in that I'll be creating more "behind the scenes" posts and videos (maybe). In the meantime, hope to get more than... well... two... Patreon backers.
• Hopefully set up a regular game with... somebody...
• Maybe go to GenCon. I don't know yet... I need to see if the expense really is worth it.
• Sort out my personal and financial situations so that I can do this kind of stuff more readily and with less guilt.

If you're reading this, you're one of the reasons I press on. Thank you for your support, and I hope to show you a lot more cool things in 2019.

Ever forward.

The post A New Year first appeared on A Walk in the Dark.