Working on vibe post.

Author: benserrette

drafts/the-periles-of-vibe-prepping.md

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+# The Perils of Vibe-Prepping for Pen and Paper RPGs
+_or_
+**How I Learned That Vibe-Coding Isn't Just for Making Bad Software**
+
+I've gained a reputation among my staff and our grad students as being very anti-AI.  Admittedly, I do tend to rant and go off on tangents, but I'm really not anti-AI.  I _love_ AI.  It's just my job to make sure they use it responsibly:
+- Don't run vibe-coded scripts on the servers.
+- Cursor isn't approved software, so stop using it at work.
+- Think about data security before sending data to third-party LLMs.
+- Use it as a tool, not a replacement for critical thinking.
+
+They hear all this daily.  Which is why it was more than a little humbling when I realized I was doing the exact same things I warn them about, just in a much different context.  I was more or less vibe-coding the prep work for the weekly tabletop RPG I run for my friends.
+
+_Vibe-Prepping_, if you will.
+
+## Pen and Paper RPG Primer
+
+If you already know what a PnP or TTRPG is, feel free to skip ahead.  But in case you don't (or just want a refresher), a Pen and Paper or Tabletop Role Playing Game is an activity in which a group of people experience an interactive story together.  Before recent advances in video conferencing technology, these games were played in person, around a table, using a pen (or pencil) and paper (hence the name).  There's usually a book that describes the setting and provides a set of rules that the players must abide by.  More often than not, the players roll a variety of dice to decide the outcome of the decisions they make.
+
+Many people are familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, at least in passing.  While D&D is probably the most popular TTPRG in the US, but there are dozens, if not hundreds, of other TTRPGs, each with its own unique setting and set of rules.  Some use figurines that you move around a map like a traditional board game.  Others use specialized dice or tokens to keep track of stats.  What they all have in common, though, is that there's a group of people telling a story together and the action always happens in your imagination.  All you really need is a few friends and an idea.
+
+It's not the case in all games, but the ones I play always have one person act as the Game Master (also known as a Referee or Dungeon Master, depending on the game) and one or more other people act as Players.  The GM controls the setting, environment, monsters, and non-player characters.  The Players create and control their own characters with their own attributes, background, and goals.  The GM describes the current status of the game world.  The Players react to the environment and other characters and decide what actions their characters take.  The GM then describes what happens, depending on what the Players do.  This cycle continues and creates a story that all the players tell and experience together.
+
+## My Experience
+
+Over the years, I've played a game here and there and even attempted to run a game once or twice, but I didn't _really_ get into TTRPGs until the Summer of 2020.  The world was in quarantine, and I was recovering from a minor surgery (completely unrelated to the lockdown).  I was bored and saw an ad on Facebook for a GM looking for players.  Long story short, I fell down the rabbit hole and for more than 4 years, I played a weekly game on Discord with an amazing group of people from all over the globe.
+
+Most of the time, I was just a player, but after a few years of weekly games, our usual GM burned out (there's a lot of prep and brainpower required to be a good GM).  If I wanted to continue playing every week, I needed to take over as GM of our group.  The problem is that I don't have a ton of time to prep, I'm not super creative, and I'm just not a great GM in general.
+
+Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it), ChatGPT hit the shelves soon after.  I immediately began using it to supplement my creativity and prep for my games.  And it does a weirdly great job.
+
+## But How Great Is It?
+
+It's important to know that beyond all the narrative and imagination, TTRPG characters are grounded in rules and numbers.  Some games are more complex than others, but for the most part, generating a character is a good test of logic and reasoning.  For example, one of the games I play has an extensive list of skills, spells, and attributes.  You have to buy the skills and spells and everything with Adventure Points.  Each skill or spell can cost different amounts of points depending on what level the skill is at currently or what kind of other prerequisites are needed.  Creating a viable character isn't always as easy as rolling some dice.
+
+That's why I've been using "Create a random character is such and such game" as a benchmarking prompt since the beginning.  It's not hugely difficult to create a [character generator](https://github.com/benserrette/cyberpunk_red_chargen_v2) because computers are really good at following directions.  Large Language Models, however, are built to replicate language, not follow logic.  Since the beginning, ChatGPT has been great at coming up with the narrative components, but it hasn't always gotten the logic part correct.  That's fine, though, because it's the narrative parts that I'm not good at.
+
+
+
+
+I've watched the ChatGPT models grow over time.  One of the ways I've been "benchmarking" it is to ask it to generate a completely random characters.