path: root/2023/captions/emacsconf-2023-solo--how-i-play-ttrpgs-in-emacs--howard-abrams--main.vtt

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.

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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

00:12:47.880 --> 00:12:50.879
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,

00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:24.079
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

00:13:40.400 --> 00:13:42.039
when all you want to do

00:13:42.040 --> 00:13:44.359
is have a bit of fun prototyping a game.

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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.

00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:35.920
Happy hacking, my friends.