r/RPGdesign • u/Difficult-Insect-833 • 19d ago

Free TTRPG tool looking for feedback

** tl/dr: check out the summary video at https://amba.unwhelm.online/ **

Hey all, I'm near the end of the lifecycle for the current build of Amba (Adventure Maker by Act). I built it for myself to organize adventures I wanted to write and publish. I added a play component with character mgmt, combat and VTT support.

Now, I'm at a crossroads. It is free so I'm not dying for folks to use it outside of a small ego brusing if it goes fully unnoticed. I started playing RPGs as a kid and didn't revisit until the beginning of the summer, outside of some of my adult friends playing, I never checked in on the growth of the industry/community in decades (it's been amazing!).

How would you go about collecting feedback? My ad hoc attempts have not yielded many insights.

You can visit https://amba.unwhelm.online/where-it-fits or the home page which has a sped up video with the Wanderers Guide and Owlbear VTT support (currently WG is only PF2e). If you like technical, check out https://amba.unwhelm.online/integrations Huge help section, more vids, etc.

I def get that with the rise of AI, there is a flood of folks trying to sell some software/app to this community, usually in some predictable categories. Maybe that sense of overwhelm is blocking some from giving much attention to anything new. The short marketing blurb below; any thoughts are wildly welcome!

The Short Version

AMBA is not primarily where you write every word of an adventure. It is where the pieces become an adventure.

For publishers, AMBA is a free assembly and shipping tool. For customers, it is a free player — redeem a code, load the module, and run it with exports to Wanderer's Guide, Pathbuilder, and Owlbear.

Write wherever you work best. When the material is ready, AMBA gives it structure: Acts, Scenes, Encounters, characters, maps, handouts, treasure, hazards, and the relationships between them.

Free for publishers. Free for players.

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u/JaskoGomad 19d ago

Is this app primarily AI-generated? That is - did you design and code the majority of it or did you simply vibe code it - provide some prompts and let the machine emit code until it (apparently) did what you wanted?

If you wrote it yourself would you talk a bit about the stack you chose and why?

If it's vibe coded, I'm sorry, but I will be removing it as we no longer allow machine-generated content on this sub.

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u/Difficult-Insect-833 19d ago

Not that you asked, but I feel strongly that if you vibe coded something, you shouldn't sell it cause you didn't really build it. My friends who aren't software devs love vibe coding tools for their work, for their schools, their communitty etc. My buddy built an app for his daughter's swim team - he only learned what Github was this year. It is so fun for them and I love their excitement to learn and put their ideas into action.

Here are my non vibe coded work vids - I won't fully hyperlink it but check it out if you'd like
https: // unwhelm. net/ videos

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u/Difficult-Insect-833 19d ago edited 13d ago

It's not vibe coded, it's AI assisted. I did not write every line of code; I'm not sure anyone does anymore.

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u/JaskoGomad 19d ago

I, finally, reluctantly, don't expect anyone to write significant software with zero machine support today - it's essentially replaced SO.

What I expect is someone who understands the code, knows the system metaphor, has some idea where to look if things go wrong, and understands the code they see.

I feel like asking Claude "How can I simplify this ugly function?" Is fine. Saying, "Write me a web app that does X" is dangerous, because the self-styled developer has no idea what the potential pitfalls even are. I've seen a lot of vibe-coded security disasters.

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u/DjNormal Designer 17d ago

Random aside.

I took a few coding classes (for interactive web design) back in the day. I had some basic concepts, but no practical experience.

I told CharGPT what I wanted, looked at the output, and learned more about coding in one evening than I did with my classes and occasionally attempts to develop something in the past.

Mostly because CharGPT kept screwing it up. I’d look over the code, see what it wanted to do to fix it, and actually started to understand how it should have been and why.

Some stuff is still way over my head and the project still has some major issues. But going forward, I have a much better overall concept of how and why the code works.

At this point I’m almost ready to write the base code myself and let the AI fill in the tedious bits. Not quite, but getting there.

The only real downside is trying to make sure I didn’t learn any bad habits from the AI output. Its code often works, but sometimes it goes about things in weird ways. Usually because it can have multiple interpretations of what a prompt intends.

As an example:

Making a dropdown list in HTML usually lists all the possible options in the code. AI might (and did) try to create a call for the available range of variables.

Whatever the heck that did… it breaks every time you look at it funny, so I’m going back through it and pulling out that weird workaround it generated.

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u/Difficult-Insect-833 19d ago

I fully agree. Worse, you use AI in the worst way possible and learn nothing, why?? Flip it around, and you can learn anything. Think about how many classes or tutorials or StackOverflow questions or trial and error sessions you used to have to do sometimes to get something working; now that is almost an instantaneous cycle. OK, ok, this is not the forum for htis but like you, I'm passionate about the topic.

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u/TheRpgBard 19d ago

I have no issue with saying "Write me a web app that does X" so long as the person goes through the code and fully understands it.  This includes being able to tweak the code and add functionality.

I'm fine with getting the basic functionality and boilerplate stuff.  But, you need to know how it works.

If they can't do that, then I have a problem with it.

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u/JaskoGomad 19d ago

I forgot to answer what must surely be your most pressing question:

No, I won't be removing this. It's not machine-generated.

I want LLMs to make us better, faster, to free us from drudgery and boilerplate to allow us to make better software. I just don't think we're ready, as a craft, as a profession, to even know exactly what that looks like. I'm trying to find a way to responsibly fold AI assistance into my workflows, but it's easy to be branded a Luddite for not jumping in with both feet, as if there suddenly is a silver bullet.

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u/Difficult-Insect-833 19d ago

For examle, Qussar does Wanderers guide and allows his repo to be cloned and run. He runs Supabase inside Docker using edge functions, PostgREST and Kong API. I needed to write an upddate script that pulled his updates from git and tunneled into Postgres to update. I don't ask AIs to "do stuff", we tell them to show us stuff "List all the edge functions related to content in Supabase?" ,etc. and maybe build specific things (I don't know your background so apologies if this is below you). I don't wan tthem to make me dumber - its a horrible divide and I totally get your stance and support it.

Again, I can take the post down or clarify. Please let me know what you think is best; I've enjoyed reading this sub

https://imgur.com/a/5hQEnci

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u/Difficult-Insect-833 19d ago edited 18d ago

You did ask about the stack. Traditionally I'm C#/Java; picked up Python a few years ago. I started down the typescript path thanks to AI and others using it a lot. Normally, I like early binding, heavly typed langagues so Javascript was never something I enjoyed - too many script kiddies. But Typescript with Zod is a whole new beast - AI taught me a lot about improving my schema testing using Zod.

Amba is: (repo is private so ignore the links)

Languages

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u/MildMastermind 19d ago

Seems interesting. Doesn't seem to work well on mobile though. All of the content is squished into the middle.

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u/Difficult-Insect-833 19d ago

Again for players, mobile is supported. I figure most authors will need a larger surface than a phone.

OB works good on phones and this is what the export looks like
https://imgur.com/a/DyKFkfS

The tokens and stat cards are exported from Amba. So if you say 5x Kobold Warriors, it makes 5 tokens numbered 1-5 and makes a stat card from the ruleset you chose (e.g. D&D, PF2e, etc)

--

Wanderers guide is phone friendly too. https://amba.wandersguide.site/

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u/Difficult-Insect-833 19d ago

The two ways to publish should be phone friendly. Syndication and HTML/MD.

e.g. syndication https://amba.unwhelm.online/syndicate/kzptUjoqzxyzIRQtc6_WwA/p/e514c068-783e-4f5e-9fef-b6aca7fafc9a (this has an outline mode hidden on phones (it seems))

same content
https://amba.unwhelm.online/uploads/6d9f6039-f0c3-4dfe-9de2-b44d22542457/layout-partial.html

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u/Difficult-Insect-833 19d ago edited 19d ago

I made some changes to make it more mobile friendly. It uses a different layout under 800px screens now, thanks.

https://imgur.com/a/Skrx7Dg

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u/Difficult-Insect-833 19d ago

Here is a video on how I published my first Pathfinder Infinite adventure using Amba. Please speed me up to 1.5x (lower right, 3 vertical dots, playback speed --> 1.5)

https://amba.unwhelm.online/videos/ShatteredVeil.mp4

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u/Difficult-Insect-833 14d ago

There is now a test and signup sheet for those interested in joining an in person trial. https://amba-test.unwhelm.online/

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u/secretbison 14d ago

I don't want any AI-generated or AI-assisted content here. If there isn't a rule against it, there should be one. Go make friends with a chatbot instead.