# Character Creation Challenge 2025: Day 22 - Medley - Seth Banning, Fast-Talking AI Researcher tags: #articles/CharacterCreationChallenge/2025 #game/rpg/medley > [!quote] [[Character Creation Challenge 2025]] > > ![[Character Creation Challenge Image.png]] ## Game of Choice I know it seems like I hit ultra hard on extremely rules minimalist systems — and that's because it's true. A good chunk of my modern collection is games that would fit in a small folder, and of that selection, there is a notable portion which fit on a single sheet. The one-page RPG is a fascinating design, whether it be intended to be read as front and back of a traditional 8.5 by 11 page or of a trifold design. My personal feeling is that putting together a reasonable and comprehensive one-page RPG is just as hard as longer form. It's the haiku of the RPG, simultaneously parsimonious with words and reaching to evoke more than it depicts. You got it. We are doing another one-page RPG today. And yes, I know that my usual *"cover"* insert here is just the first column of the front of the single page, because one-page RPGs generally don't *have* covers, and throwing in an image of the full mechanics seemed like an unnecessary subversion of a product that's actually being sold for $3 (though you can have it and a bunch of other one-page games for $6, and I encourage you to do so). ![[Medley (cover).jpg]] It's **[[Medley]]**, from Deep Light Games. I don't even really need to go through my usual describing the game schtick here because you are staring at exactly what it's all about in the first paragraph up there. What you don't see are the examples, or the mechanics, or the back side of the sheet which is full of random generation tables in case you weren't feeling particularly inspired. In terms of die mechanics, you build a pool of d6, roll the lot, and read the highest number. The outcome is interpreted in a vaguely *[[Blades in the Dark|Forged in the Dark]]* sort of way, with 6 being a complete success where you achieve your goal and any additional 6s give extra effect, a 3-4 is a mixed result where you achieve your goal but have some sort of consequences, and a 1-3 is a bad outcome which has hard consequences Honestly, just from that you could probably play any game that's stuck in your head but let's go through not just character generation, but group and setting generation along with the adventure because here we are and we have to do something, right? ## Acts of Creation For a change, you can actually see the text I'm working from while I work through it. Feel free to tinker along with me. ### Set 'Em Up' Because I'm here all alone, we're just going to pretend that we have three players when it comes to how much content to generate, because that's what the game suggests. I'm not going to use one word per card, because I'm not going to need to shift around things on the table. Feel free to do that yourself as you come along with me. First up, we need to come up with a setting. Effectively, we need to come up with nine words and put them in groups of three. I'm going to make this a little more challenging because if I come up with nine words, it's going to be way too coherent. I'm going to flip to the back of the sheet and simply generate nine words off of the d666 grid. It's not as large as it sounds as we read each of those as a separate d6. 36 vertically, six wide. > [6, 3, 1], [2, 6, 2], [4, 1, 4] New. Electric. Ancient. > [5, 1, 6], [6, 5, 1], [5, 2, 3] War. Silver. Academy. > [5, 5, 6], [1, 3, 3], [5, 4, 2] Smoke. Weakness. Strength. That was a lot less difficult than I thought it was going to be. A table set up like that is actually pretty quick to reference things on. The first two dice you read as the x-axis and then count over the number of the last and it goes pretty swiftly. I wouldn't mind seeing more tables set up like that. (Ironically, in the first batch I actually had 5, 5, 6 come up twice in the same trio. The odds of that happening are extremely low, but here we are. I did mention that dice hate me, right?) Obviously the first setting is the rise of an artificial intelligence which has been trained on all of the religious texts of humanity. That follows. The second is a little more challenging. A South American military academy during the outbreak of a 19th century war for control of silver mines. The third takes a little bit of thinking, but I see a ninja assassin clan in Edo. Of the three, I think my favorite is **The Rise of the Artificially Intelligent Messiah**. But that does sound like something I would be fascinated by, doesn't it? ### Groupies Next up we repeat the process except with two words per player in pairs to come up with a concept for who the group is as a whole. Why are they together? What are they doing? I'm going to try and do the same thing one more time and hopefully we won't see a lot of repeats. > [5, 1, 5], [6, 2, 4] Scrolls. Overture. > [5, 5, 3], [2, 3, 1] Metal. Company. > [5, 5, 2], [1, 4, 5] Bear. Misdirection. Let's see the first, maybe, a group of scientists who work at the company presenting scrolls which haven't been authenticated to the AI in order to figure out if they are reasonable or real. The second is also a group of scientists and C-suite executives at the company which created the AI trying to figure out if this is a useful construct. The third one is a real challenge. Maybe the characters are a group of Pacific Northwest Native American tribals who want access to the AI because they want the help of Bear and they believe Bear is one of the aspects the AI has internalized. The third is kind of weird and probably would make for a great novel but is a bit too abstruse for a TTRPG. Let's go with the first. **Scientists want to authenticate scrolls with the help of the AI.** ### Characteristic Creation Here is where it would be very helpful for these words to be on individual cards, which, if you've been playing along at home and doing so yourself, is going to present a fantastic opportunity for you to point and laugh at me. I will accept that. We need to bring out the words which were not used and write down new words until there are four per player in front of all of us (meaning me). And then everybody grabs three cards to represent things that help our character. Somebody could be GM, but that's not going to be me today. We have six words from the setting collection which were not selected. We have four words from the group collection that weren't picked. That means we have a total of ten words, and thus we need two more. Time to go grab a couple of words off the grid, then present the lot: > [3, 1, 4], [4, 1, 6] Lost. Disguise. War. Silver. Academy. Smoke. Weakness. Strength. Metal. Company. Bear. Misdirection. All right, my three selections to create a scientist presenting scrolls to an artificially intelligent messiah in order to validate their veracity, Seth Banning: **Company:** Connections in the Executive Suite **Academy:** Well Recognized for his Work in Artificial Intelligence **Misdirection:** An Accomplished Liar who got his Position Largely through Fast Talk and Rigged Demos *(So basically your typical AI bro.)* ### Taking a Run at It All right, we are almost done. We just need to generate the adventure. We will group them in twos and do a little interpretation on each pair. Lost. Disguise. War. Silver. Smoke. Weakness. Strength. Metal. Bear. Right, so maybe that doesn't quite work out as well as I'd like. Things get weird when you're doing solo play. I'm going to shuffle these around in my mind and come up with three different adventure ideas based on two that seem interesting together. *War/Weakness:* The AI has considered the content of the scrolls and determined that humanity isn't strong enough to live up to its religious ideals and thus must be destroyed. ***Smoke/Metal:*** Hardware problems lead to the massive collection of computing power being used, "Letting the magic smoke out." Something has to be done or at least covered up. *Bear/Disguise:* The AI actually is a conduit for Bear but doesn't want to reveal its reality, so continues to masquerade as merely software. Can our scientists determine the truth, and what do they do if so? Honestly, any of those three are pretty good as far as I'm concerned. The first is more an idea for an entire grand arc than a single adventure. The third actually pays off the mysticism in the setup while drawing on one of the discarded setting ideas, which is kind of fun. Ultimately, though, I would go with the second because dealing with a massive failure in a huge project because of some sort of stupid hardware issue is absolutely on brand for every project I've ever worked on. I think that's the winner. ## Exunt No character sheet this time, and I'm not even going to write down a summary. If we were playing in person, we would have a bunch of index cards spread out in front of us that we could point at and talk about. You get the idea. This is a truly super light game, but the way that setup is done is really the critical mechanical innovation on the table The interpretation pass being done as a group after they sit down is simultaneously going to be terrifying for some people and incredibly freeing for others. The availability of a straightforward oracle is going to take a little of the edge off for the first group. If you are the kind that doesn't like to do rapid-fire improv or gets analysis paralysis, this game is probably not for you. On the other hand, most of the games I like are probably not for you, so if that describes you, you've probably already figured that out. Is this game worth $3? I'd say so. I've gotten at least $3 worth of entertainment just from running through the setup process. [Is it worth $6 as part of a bundle? Absolutely, no question. Why are you still sitting here?](https://itch.io/s/124483/ttrpg-pamphlets-bundle) Go go go, especially if you are in a regular group which sometimes has people not show up and you want to just throw together a filler game that everyone can collaborate on for the night and be done in a single session. This is a great thing to put out. The mechanics are simple and straightforward but effective. Half the fun is in the setup; you can put it together, get people in, play through the adventure and go on. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. And we're clear. Fast, easy, simple, straightforward and short. Tomorrow we are going to put on our sandals and pick up our sword to go out and make a name for ourselves. It could get a little strange.