SESSION 3 — THE STEP INTO RIPPLEDARK
All right, time for more D&D where I am the solo player and ChatGPT is the DM! Today I am going to try and help ChatGPT out by giving short prompts that give it some extra information, hopefully to help it speed up and get less confused.
Here is what has gone on so far:
You can catch up on the backstory and the 1st session here:
- Session 0 - The World and Gods
- Session 0.1 - The Campaign Trailer
- Session 0.2 - Character Creation
- Soul in Shadows Session 1
- Soul in Shadows Session 2
I am now level 2! I have 24 HP, 2d10 hit dice, and I gained two thingies:
Level 2: Action Surge
You can push yourself beyond your normal limits for a moment. On your turn, you can take one additional action, except the Magic action.
Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a Short or Long Rest. Starting at level 17, you can use it twice before a rest but only once on a turn.
Level 2: Tactical Mind
You have a mind for tactics and getting the upper hand on and off the battlefield. When you fail an ability check, you can expend a use of your Second Wind to push yourself toward success. Rather than regaining Hit Points, you roll 1d10 and add the number rolled to the ability check, potentially turning it into a success. If the check still fails, this use of Second Wind isn’t expended.
Tactical Mind is one of those traits that is so conditional I feel like I will never remember it.
I asked it why it is running slow, and if there's anything that can be done.
It told me this: "When performance slows, tips that help:
You don’t need to change anything, but these can speed me up:
- A. Keep mechanical updates separate from narrative turns
- B. Shorter narrative messages when possible
- C. Occasionally say “Here’s the story context you should use for the next scene.”
This lets me soft-reset to a narrower focus instead of referencing all lore at once."
I allowed it to "reorganize the campaign’s stored memory for maximum speed and consistency." I was worried this would make it forget everything, but it didn't - it ran a little faster.
Were there any issues with ChatGPT today? Yes. We're at the point where it is barely able to run D&D without me holding its hand.
ChatGPT Issues This Session:
- Still Slow: It ran faster, but there were a few times (three) where it sat there for 5+ minutes trying to make a response, and I had to shut it down and re-start it.
- Forgot Item: It forgot that I had found a major item - a piece of a soul.
- Lied About HP: It just made up monster hit point totals and lied about it.
- Moved a Scar: It forgot my magic scar was on my ribs, and moved it to my hand.
- Phony Stat Block: It made a stat block that doesn't match the monster.
- Weird Map: It made a map that was actually pretty accurate, but was done in a really weird style.
- No Challenge: It let me go into a dungeon room and retrieve a quest item with no challenge whatsoever.
- Too Much XP: It gave me way, way too much XP after a single easy encounter (it says I am now level 3, but I refuse to accept it).
- Too Difficult: I think it wants me to fight an ettin even though it knows the ettin is far, far too powerful for me to survive a single round of combat with.
Summary of What Happened This Session:
- A Dungeon: We went through an arch/portal to a "Rippledark" Dungeon.
- Soul Piece 1: I found a piece of the Queen's soul.
- Magic Throne: I found a throne that has slots for all three soul pieces.
- Soul Piece 2: I went into a room and defeated three guardians (a mask, a RIBBON, and a shadow-creature) to obtain another soul piece.
- Queen and the Ettin: We learned some backstory - the Queen was once an ally of the ettin, who is now a major villain.
- Soul Piece 3? I went into another room and got a third soul piece with no guardians or resistance at all.
- Soul Piece X: Now it is saying I only have two pieces, when I actually have three.
We start Session 3. I try to help out by giving ChatGPT a quick summary. This does seem to help response time.
Ads: This is really weird. It makes two images as part of the intro! Wait, no.. these are images from products? One is from a kickstarter about Bluetspur, and the other is from Nerdarchy: "Finding adventure or letting adventure find you."
Do they pay for ChatGPT to advertise like this, or is ChatGPT just grabbing these links? Should I pay to have my blog advertised on ChatGPT and see what happens?
What is the Rippledark? ChatGPT says the Rippledark is "the thin boundary between the Brightwood and the edge of the Void-touched realm leaking through."
SESSION 3 — THE STEP INTO RIPPLEDARK
The Arch of Whispers: That is one grammatically incorrect title we have here. We walk through a curtain of liquid shadow, and have "have crossed into the Whispering Glade’s inner ripple, a pocket of forest laid over with void resonance."
We see a twisted arch of roots and bone.
I waited 5 minutes for a response, then canceled out and logged back in.
I think it made another title for this session: SESSION 3 — THE ARCH OF WHISPERS
There's an arch with rippling shadows on it. There are all these symbols related to the deck on it. I feel drawn to the empty circle, so i touch it.
It now thinks the scar on my ribs is on my palm instead?
We open a portal to a hallway of black stone.
The Queen's Soul: This all feels like a high level adventure, not level 2 stuff. We find a swirling vortex sphere. Apparently the Queen is in there - or at least, a piece of her soul is.
This is how ChatGPT writes D&D stuff - super-dramatic spacing:
"Just then—
A shape flickers within the violet tear.
A silhouette.
Humanoid.
Slender.
Bound in chains of light and shadow.
And then—
A faint, broken whisper escapes the rift:
“...help…”
The voice is female.
Weak.
Strained.
Familiar."
I tie a rope around my waist and tell Thalen to hold the other end. It try to reach into this rift thing and pull her out - if she's even in there.
Rules-Free D&D: We really, really need a skill check or an ability check here. This is more of a choose-your-own-adventure.
I pulled a fragment of her soul or essence out?
"The shard of Badelia’s soul-luminescence fades into your palm and sinks into your chest, resting over your heart like a warm ember.
You are now soul-linked to Badelia. A permanent connection—faint, but real—has formed.
The fragment is not her full soul. It is a shard, torn loose when the void-throne fed on her essence."
We explore this place, which I insist is a DUNGEON in Dungeons & Dragons.
I feel like I can basically write this adventure through my dialogue. It feels like cheating. I said:
"I don't want to leave yet, Thalen. There could be clues in this place to where the rest of her soul is! There might also be treasure - or monsters, I suppose."
And now it is turning this hallway into a dungeon. I feel like I had to do it, as we were doing an interactive novel, not a D&D adventure.
Note about the Ettin: I had earlier told the bot that ettins are one of my favorite D&D monsters, and I gave it the ettin 2024 stat block. It looks like it decided to make an ettin a major villain, which is really cool.
Wall Reliefs:
- Queen Badelia. Pregnant with magic?? A two-headed silhouette behind her.
- The Ettin: One head peaceful, one head wrathful. It pulls three "soul glyphs" from Badelia. One bright, one jagged, and on dark. Her soul has been broken into three pieces.
- The Bargain: The Queen apparently gave her soul to the ettin to save mine.
- The Throne of Three Returns: The final relief is the throne you saw earlier, but fully completed—with all three soul-shards returned. The Queen is alive on the throne and I am standing next to her.
ChatGPT was urging me to flee this place as the portal we came in through was "unstable". But once I insisted on continuing to explore, it dropped the whole idea.
Coaching: I am coaching the bot through my prompts. I ant Chat GPT to know that I am second level and can not survive fighting an ettin:
"I will smile. "Thank you.. friend. Let's see what danger awaits us now! I just hope we don't run into this ettin, it looks far too strong for us to fight right now.' I will look at the displacer beast and pat its head softly. "And thank you, too. Stay out of danger, OK?"
I am level 2! I can't fight an ettin yet!
There are three hallways to choose from. I decide to go left. I think I am going to ask it to map a map of what we've explored so far, and see if it is gibberish.
- It makes up a language called "Thorncall" that I can't speak.
- It suggests Thalen cast Detect Magic and then points out that he can't cast that spell.
The Violet Corridor: We enter a room that has a soul shard, three floating motes, and murals.
The bot tells me the motes are "soul-resonance sparks" as if I have any idea what that means.
The Murals:
- The Ettin and the Wueen, when she was younger, working together to tear open a rift.
- A voidling being dragged by the ettin. The ettin would drain its essence nightly. The Queen pitied it.
- The ettin took her soul?
- Mural of My character, the displacer beast, and Thalen near the throne, holding the knight card.
It gets confused.. it forgot that I already have one soul shard.
FIGHT: We take the shard and the three motes turn into a mask, a ribbon, and a humanoid creature. Constructs made of hard light. I'm going to fight them.
I basically coach the bot - explaining that I'll attack, we'll roll initiative, and I tell it all my rolls. Kind of holding its hand through the process.
It is doing that thing where it acts like the creature is one hit away from dying, then it says it is at half HP.
I asked it to tell me how many hit points the mask had.. and as it responds, it realizes the mask should have been dead a while ago.
Tracking HP: I am going to ask for monster hp at the start of every fight so I can track it. It takes some of the fun out of the game, but it is very annoying to be hitting these monsters endlessly.
ChatGPT later decides to give me hp totals and gets them all wrong, and thinks the mask is back alive!
- Ribbon has 22
- Shadow has 26
The ribbon has 2 attacks?!
Whew, that was a mess! It can't really run a coherent combat. It was also boring! And what a weird choice of monsters. It's homebrewing everything!
A.I. Homebrew: I am fascinated by the idea of an A.I. making its own D&D monsters, but it's going to need to use some official creatures sooner or later.
I asked it to make a statblock of the mask:
It just made up these stats! I am amused that "Action" is at the bottom, with no actions beneath it.
NPC Boredom: I don't mind Thalen, but he's boring. I am kind of hoping he will die (He's stuck at 11 HP, he can't possibly survive forever!) so we can get someone else as a sidekick.
XP Reward: I cringe at the idea of asking it how much XP I get. I think it's just going to make up numbers. It doesn't even remember how much XP I had last session. It gives me 750 XP and says I am now lvl 3.
I am not doing that, that's just cheating. I am going to stay lvl 2 for now.
The Really Weird Map: I asked it to draw a map of this place so far. I carefully reminded it of the layout as best I could. Hopefully it can make a map that at least somewhat makes sense.
This map is fairly accurate.. but wtf. What is that? That's no fantasy map. Also, the center passage does not connect here.
We head down the right-side passage.
It again thinks my scar is on my palm.
We see some moving murals:
🔹 Kinetic murals
These walls don’t show—they move.
Scenes shift subtly as you walk, like memories replaying on repeat:
- Badelia kneeling at the Deck of Many Things.
- The Void reaching through the card.
- The Ettin-parent dragging her soul toward a monolith of black stone.
Why is it calling the Ettin the "Ettin-parent"? I think it is accidentally spoiling something.
The Second Room: I just walked in and grabbed the soul shard. This place was easy. I just took it. what's the point?
It now thinks I have 2 of 3 shards. I am going to go ahead and assume that first shard entered into my chest and became part of me.
That's where we stopped.
This Could Be Good: I played for HOURS and we only got through a few rooms. I absolutely love the core concepts that the bot came up with, but the execution is so messy.
I guess that's just how it is at this point in time. I assume in the future it will get better and better, and I like the idea of logging its progress here at the beginning.
I can't fight an ettin! It has two attacks per round and can kill me in two hits!
I guess we'll see what happens next time.
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