So I recently used ChatGPT to GM a Classic Traveller session for me to play solo. I had previously played around with Chat for character generation and other rules references, and of course forgot the limitations I had learned. The key point is that Chat ‘knows too much’, and can’t discern between editions, even though it says it will. I have repeatedly tried to constrain it to Classic Traveller, Books 1 to 3. It will acknowledge and say that is all it is using, but then the next prompt it is using Book 4 or MG or something else. Of course when you correct it it will congratulate you on the catch, admits it’s error, and insist it has made the correction, only to do it again soon thereafter. So just be prepared to have to constantly correct it, or live with the variances. The more you can directly feed it to use the better, but that adds to your load. The whole point is supposed to be it already has everything!
So I started by just asking it to GM a Classic Traveller solo game (see screenshot). It offered to generate a character or go through generation with me. It also asked what kind of game I wanted and gave me 5 or 6 options: Free trader sandbox (Firefly-style), Military / mercenary missions, Intrigue / espionage, Exploration (Scout-style), Frontier survival / low-tech worlds, or Something specific (tell me). I told it sandbox intrigue/espionage.
I chose to generate a character with it rolling the dice and providing the table results (skills, etc). The first indication of an error was when it said it rolled an 8 for a skill and gave me a skill. Skill tables are 1d6. In correcting that I asked it to provide the table it was using (I had selected to roll an Army character. The tables were close, although each had errors. And one was labeled ‘Office Table’ which doesn’t exist in CT. It seemed to be in place of the Advanced Education Table (the normal, not EDU 8+, which it had labeled). I corrected that labeling and the data.
It also did not include service skills (for my Army guy, Rifle-1 at enlistment, and SMG-1 at LT). And then mustering out the tables had errors again.
So, guidance for generating a character: ask it to provide all the tables it will use, and correct them. Once you do that, you should be able to reuse them if you use the same chat conversation/project.
Another big item I discovered later during play was that it assumed I wanted a DnD 5E ‘everyone is a hero and always succeeds’ type of play experience, so even tho it presented dice rolls like it was randomizing 2-12, they were all 6 or 7 or higher, and succeeding 90% of the time. So up front work out the dice rolling convention: strict 2d6, show each dice roll if you want, the total, and DMs with explanations. Once I did that in play, the stress level went up a bit because I started failing checks more often. However, it continued to ‘temper’ failures to be ‘it didn’t go quite as planned’ so nothing completely blew up in my face. I have not corrected that yet, but may investigate it further. Playing a solo character, I didn’t really want to die right away, I wanted to play a bit.
So it took my character (Army, 2 terms, Capt) as just mustered out on Regina sitting in a bar when a guy sits down at the table and presents a data chip and says ‘I got a job, delivering this, if you want’. So a bit abrupt, and suspicious. It tried to tie it into my character development, where I had directed it to take missed survival rolls as being wounded in action. So it created something about I was wounded on a mission that didn’t take place, only showing as training mission in my records, and if I did this job he could help me find out what really happened. Hmm, I was there, so I would know. Like I said, didn’t make a lot of sense.
So this guy was pressing hard, high pay, supposedly easy job. Sounded like a set up I didn’t want to jump on, so I kept asking questions. He went on about how it was an intercepted message packet that had be altered or something. It was really hard to follow the ‘logic’. I ended up taking the job after getting some money up front. I had to take it to a ship in orbit, deliver it, and he would be watching for reactions (somehow) when they loaded it up. Very suspicious, so I checked the data out first and learned (remember, this was before I corrected Chats die rolls, so I was all success) that it was altered, and had some type of trigger when it was read that would send some message/info, either in the system or broadcast. It all sounded bad.
So I decided to turn the tables when I delivered it, and told the contact/recipient I had more information they wanted/needed. That all went well, I got more money, and brokered myself to work for them. The ship seemed connected to mil intel somehow, so I figured better to work for them than the guys against them. So now they set me on trying to figure out who was doing the altering.
At each point it would give me choices for ‘what do you do’, and of course I could provide my own (which I usually did as a combination of the offers). I could constrain it to not provide so many options, but the logic of the networks and hacking was confusing, so I elected to let it keep prompting. I did call it out at one point because it seemed to be conflating computer programs/access with physical access points. It went through a big explanation, and we clarified a few terms, but I think it is till doing that. For instance, maintenance corridors (physical hallways) have maintenance access points (terminals) that I have to access. Maintenance programs can only be accessed from these terminals, and the hacking could only have been done this way because admin (offices or terminals) don’t have the access. Seems a bit constrained to me. But I’m going with it.
Another aspect I noticed was NPCs seem to provide a lot of info with little prompting. Most times they would say one thing, pause, and then provide a great nugget of info. And that’s all in one response from Chat, no extra prompting/questioning from me. I think despite what it said it is still trying to have my PC ‘win’ a lot. It did roll reactions to each thing I would say, but again even a failure was just the NPC hesitating or asking e a question instead of providing info. No hostile reactions or completely shutting down.
Also, even though I said play CT, it is using a challenge matrix/difficulty test for most things, with my ability as a DM based on a table. Not in CT. But it works so I’m going with it, instead of using roll under ability score type of test. I only have Tacts-1 and Computer -1 (and Air/Raft-1, Rifle -2, and SMG-1) as skills, so I think it based this scenario on my computer skill. But tactics is a +1 DM to most challenges as well for ‘situational awareness’ or ‘planning’. Again I’m taking it for now and will see if I want to try and refine things later or in another round with a different PC.
One interesting thing I ran into towards the end of my play last night. I asked it if I could start a fire in a trash can as a diversion, and it shut down and said it could not provide me with that information. I was confused, because I had a gun and could have been shooting people in the game. After some back and forth it explained it was final answering a general statement of intent within the game (I create a diversion), but could not give me direction on how to do something that could be used in real life to harm people. I guess maybe a version of Asimov’s First Law of Robotics? It was interesting to run into that, and will be interesting when I get into combat. Most interesting to me was that I did not ask it ‘how’ to create a fire, I asked if I ‘could’. In an rpg, I guess as a PC I shouldn’t ask a GM that in general, because they could just say ‘sure you can’. Just that it took ‘could’ to me ‘tell me explicitly how I can start a fire’.
So overall I was fairly happy with my experience, but only because I had played with Chat before and was not as surprised when I had to keep correcting it. I’m going to keep playing this PC and see where it leads, but I also want to try a party with my PC and NPCs that I nominally control. Getting into some combat will be interesting too, and then space travel/combat. I just have to remember to have to provide the tables it will be using so I can correct them and make sure we are on the same page and playing CT as much as possible.
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