WEBVTT captioned by sachac, checked by sachac
NOTE Introduction
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Hi there, I'm Howard Abrams. You may remember me
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from past conference talks
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as "Literate DevOps and the Temple of Doom"
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and "Using Eshell for Fun and Profit".
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I'm here to talk to you about my latest Emacs project:
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playing games, solo role-playing games.
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I started playing RPGs when I got my first copy
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of Dungeons & Dragons when I was 12.
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Yes, my original copy burned
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in the Great Satanic Panic of the 1980s,
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but that's another story.
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I started playing other RPGs like GURPS.
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These are some of my notes.
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Back then, I was typing them in Emacs,
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but I formatted them with LaTeX.
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Later, when I was introducing my kids
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to role-playing games,
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I actually typed them up still in Emacs,
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but now formatted them for a tablet.
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I wrote a little JavaScript code
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that allowed me to click on it, and it would roll dice,
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generate random events, keep track of turn order,
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you know, everything,
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so I didn't have to slow down the action of the game.
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Well, when my kids got older,
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I still managed to sneak in a game of D&D
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once a week at lunch.
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This pastime came to a screeching halt with the pandemic.
NOTE Solo RPGs
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I turned to playing role-playing games by myself
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to get my fix. Playing these silly elf games in solo mode
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has been part of the game for many years,
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but with so many of us stuck at home,
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solo role-playing games really expanded,
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creative people releasing some amazing ideas.
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What's a solo RPG like? Well, it's somewhere in the middle
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of writing your own story, where anything's possible,
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but you've got to do all the imaginative work;
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or reading a choose-your-own-adventure book,
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where the text is given to you,
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and you have free, a few predetermined paths;
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and tactical battle games,
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where dice determines everything.
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It kind of fits in the sweet spot between those.
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While I started removing the Game Master
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using the Mythic GM Emulator,
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Ironsworn really captivated me.
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I began with dice, pencils, notebooks, you know,
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just like when I was a kid. But taking notes on paper?
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Yeah, you know me. That's not my jam. Org mode is.
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And, you know, notes have to be in Org,
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well, why not write a little dice roller in Lisp?
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Well, when Shawn Tomkin released his Ironsworn
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under the Creative Commons, well,
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I could just download the entire text.
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I figured I could just render the entire game in Emacs.
NOTE Demo
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All right, enough talk. Let's get some Emacs action here,
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while I show you a bit of my game.
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When playing a solo RPG,
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I jot down the story notes in an Org file.
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I mean, did you expect anything less from me?
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I alternate between lengthy prose and short notes.
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As I'm both the writer and the audience,
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the goal is just enjoyment.
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So, this document is both a record log of my game sessions,
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as well as my character's character sheet.
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In most RPGs, a player's focus is a character sheet
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that lists all the attributes, the stats, equipment,
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powers, you know, that sort of thing.
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For my game, I wanted the focus to be the prose,
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or at least the notes.
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So, I put down all the stats as Org mode properties.
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Now, I can collapse a property drawer
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and have functions
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that just grab values from these properties.
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All right, let's play. While not important to my talk,
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I'm in the middle of a game. My character, Tegan,
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promised to help a village by tracking down
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the son of a village chief. A less-than-stellar roll
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meant I didn't catch him before he entered
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the mysterious underground structure
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of a relic of an ancient people.
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I just finished playing out the journey,
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and he's about to enter into the Catacombs of Svala's Blood.
NOTE Randomization
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Why that name? Well, that was actually what came up
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from an extensive random number generator that I wrote.
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As I wrote more and more functions
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to help me play this game,
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and since I don't play all the time,
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I created hydra. I can roll dice,
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I can roll dice challenges against the character stats,
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I can adjust stats. Lots of random generators
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come from this oracle section.
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For instance, are footprints going through the door?
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I press `c`, and I'm prompted with how likely.
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Since the villagers gave Tegan vague directions,
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and he didn't see any signs the contrary,
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I chose "likely". And, well, it originally said yes,
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and that's why I jotted this information down.
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Now, this is different than my character's ability
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to notice the prints. This is about generating the story,
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something that the game master would do
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in a typical role-playing game.
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Now, if I wanted to name something,
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or even the current weather,
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I have random tables with the `C` keystroke.
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Hmm, weather. Oh, it's summer, so hey,
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it's nice and clear. All right, let's play.
NOTE Moves
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The action in Ironsworn,
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like other Powered by the Apocalypse games,
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is driven by moves. So, I hit the `m` key,
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and all the moves show up.
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Now, I don't think I need to espouse
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the virtues of completing-read enhancements like Ivy.
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Here, I'm using orderless with vertico
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to help me find my choices.
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Since I've discovered a site, let's play that move.
NOTE Reference
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I seldom remember the details for the moves,
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so I figured, why not put the text of the book
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in an Org file and show it in a side window?
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The prompt at the bottom, asking for a name,
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is driven by the content in the displayed Org file.
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This allows me to enhance my game without
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changing the original code. So, let's call this story arc,
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Exploring the Catacombs of Svala's Blood.
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Ooh, sounds epic.
NOTE Story arcs
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Ironsworn tracks the beats of a narrative,
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so major plot points take up more room in the fiction
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than minor plot points.
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Similar games like Blades in the Dark
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use numbers to track these, so you can say something like,
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we're three quarters of the way through this story arc.
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Ironsworn just uses labels,
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and while I want this particular story arc
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to be significant, I really just want to get in,
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find this person, and get out.
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So, I'm going to call this "short".
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Next, it's asking about an Org mode header placement.
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While I originally wanted my Org files
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to be completely flexible,
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one thing I noticed in playing
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is that a pattern always emerged.
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The story became a tree. You see, story arcs
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were just a series of montages or scenes,
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and each of those were made of a series of events
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and challenges to overcome.
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So, each Org mode header has a track,
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which often becomes the number of subheadings.
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At any point, I can see how much track is being made.
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So, for instance, this one seems to be
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about a third of the way through.
NOTE Using different stats
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So, let's dive into this ancient place.
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Since I've been walking through a misty forest,
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I can imagine vines hiding an immense door
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and a humid, earthy smell as I peer inside.
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But I don't have to write that stuff down,
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or if I want to practice my writing, I can.
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I can imagine the place is dark,
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so Tegan lights a torch
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before peering into this obscure world.
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As this move mentions,
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the next move to make is called Delve the Depths.
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As soon as I select this move,
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it shows up on the side window, and explains that,
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depending on how you're moving through
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this ancient catacombs,
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is what kind of stat I roll against,
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and those stats show up at the bottom.
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You know, if I'm sneaking around, you roll against "shadow".
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If you're trying to go as fast as you can, it's "edge".
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But I kind of imagine that he's thinking through,
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being very careful about it.
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So, I'm going to select "wits".
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And I don't have any modifiers.
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Just about every one of my stats prompts me
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if I want to add or subtract any values.
NOTE Dice rolls
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A miss. I should explain how the dice roll in this game.
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The downside to Ironsworn is that
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the dice mechanics are more cumbersome than other games.
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You roll a 6-sided die, add to it your relevant stat,
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plus any modifiers. Next, you roll two 10-sided die
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and see how it compares.
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Of course, I programmed this in Lisp,
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but when I displayed it, I wanted to see all the dice.
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And I also just wanted to see the end results.
NOTE Dangers
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So I colored it. I rolled a miss,
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which means I need to reveal a danger.
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Sure, I could imagine all sorts of dangers,
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but this is a game.
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I've already made a random generator for dangers.
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In fact, I've made a random generator
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for dangers in an ancient underkeep.
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Discovery undermines or complicates the quest.
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Hmm, a complication for finding the chief's son?
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What about a labyrinth full of hallways and levels
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with lots of choices and almost no way of finding them?
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Yeah, that sounds like it fits pretty well.
NOTE A strong success
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Time for another move. This time, we're going to
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gather information,
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see if we can figure out which way to go.
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A strong hit. Excellent.
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I imagine Tegan noticing footprints in the dust
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and knowing where to go.
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The game suggests that when you get a strong success,
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you can increase your momentum.
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These game mechanics
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come into play later, but this function here
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allows me to adjust that stat +2.
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I don't even have to scroll to the top of the buffer
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and edit that value in my properties.
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At any point, I can take a look at those stats
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and see how they measure up.
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Again, I don't have to scroll up
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and take a look at my properties
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at the top of the Org mode file.
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That's how I play the game.
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It's just a recursive loop of playing a move,
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rolling some dice to see how it works,
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trying to answer the question
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based on your own imagination or random tables,
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which the game calls oracles,
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and play creatively until you decide to take a break
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and pick it up another time.
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I think you get the gist of how I play
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this dice and pencil game in Org Mode.
NOTE Other solo RPGs
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However, I found more solo RPGs to play.
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And of course, I want to render them in Emacs too.
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This code for Ironsworn was a bit too specific,
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so I decided to create a role-playing game toolkit.
00:12:04.760 --> 00:12:09.599
This project is still in the early stages,
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but I've created some functions
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for mimicking rolling dice, including a mini-DSL for
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making dice mechanics
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typical of many role-playing game systems.
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I've also ported over the random table system.
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A text file can just list entries to be displayed at random.
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I love that I can put dice expression
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and word choices in the entries.
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One type of random table allows you
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to essentially copy and paste a table
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from a published game into a text file.
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A frequency table is what I'm calling
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a list of random entries where some entries show up
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more often than others. I'm working on generalizing
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the character sheet attributes as Org properties,
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so if you're interested, check out the project at Codeberg.
NOTE Conclusion
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The point of my presentation is not to show off Ironsworn,
00:13:10.360 --> 00:13:14.079
how I programmed it, or even this new toolkit.
00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:17.559
You see, most engineers,
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when they get an idea for a game like mine,
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would make a web app. Nothing wrong with it.
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More people can play it,
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but web apps suffer from text entry.
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And don't tell me you prefer the keyboard interface
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to Google Docs. Oh, and the JavaScript framework du jour?
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Oh, I mean, that's a huge barrier of entry
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when all you want to do
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is have a bit of fun prototyping a game.
00:13:44.360 --> 00:13:48.479
What I'd like to impress upon you
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is that hacking Emacs to make personal games is a trip.
00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:57.359
Learning Lisp is, it's easy.
00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:00.919
And more, Emacs Lisp has some, well sure,
00:14:00.920 --> 00:14:04.519
it has some cruft. But really, some of those features
00:14:04.520 --> 00:14:07.599
that I would hate at a distributed system at work,
00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:10.919
like global variables, makes hacking easier
00:14:10.920 --> 00:14:14.719
when you just want to have some fun in your own system.
00:14:14.720 --> 00:14:19.599
So, grab your laptop, sink into your comfy chair,
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pour yourself a glass of scotch,
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and craft yourself an enjoyable evening.
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Happy hacking, my friends.
