Daily GM Inspiration Trick

Chat GPT recently launched a scheduled tasks feature. One task you can create will email you stuff. I’ve used followupthen.com and task features in my email app for years now to do this.

For example, there a neat trick I learned from an HR consultant who did a presentation at the day job in the 2010s.

She taught me how to time travel.

Here’s what she had us do. Write down where you think you’ll be in 6 months. Goals, accomplishments, situation. In the workshop, we each received paper and an envelope. We wrote down where we thought we’d be in six months, then put the paper into the envelope, sealed the envelope, and handed it to our manager.

Six months later I got my envelope back and was blown away. It was completely wrong. I hardly got anything done that I thought I would. I had actually made little progress at all. That was an amazing shocker.

And it taught me that we think we’ll get more done long-term than we actually do unless we’re careful.

So I immediately latched onto this trick of having my past self speak to my future self via the present. I started sending goals emails to my future self using email scheduling.

And it’s been a wonderful feedback mechanism since. Quite humbling, actually. After some failure, I decided to email myself my goals daily as six months felt too volatile. The dailies kept me focused and I started beating my six month goals.

Ok, back to GPT’s new scheduled tasks feature. I’m only using it for emails. And one daily email idea has turned out pretty well.

I ask it to create an epic encounter image and email it to me daily at 6am. When I crack open my inbox, it’s one of the first emails I seek out and open now.

Here was today’s:

As you can see, there’s all kinds of weird stuff going on and strange details in the background. Here’s a link to a bigger version if you want to zoom in.

It’s a lot of fun getting a random image sent to me each day. I always pull something out to add to my Ideas Log in Campaign Logger for my campaigns.

For example, in today’s image above I noticed a scary skeleton dude in the bottom right corner. Looks like a spellcasting skelly! And then I noticed the candles at its feet. A ritual casting skelly!

I like the idea of a skeleton immune to fire. Its spells are fire-themed. I can pour oil on it and light a match and reach out for a hug. I can give it burning candle flames for pupils.

I also noticed the skeleton seems to have normal legs. Half man, half undead! Interesting idea. And, perhaps, a curse means he’s only got a little time left for the cure. Damn these meddling heroes.

And, perhaps, a curse means he’s only got a little time left for the cure. Damn these meddling heroes.

At this time, if you have GPT Plus or higher subscription, you can access tasks via this menu:


My prompt:

Email me at 6 am every day an inspiring D&D encounter image and description involving a band of heroes battling a monster or monsters. Add lots of background, terrain, and environment details.

There are other ways you could set something like this up without using GPT. For example, buy an art book or digital art collection. Set a daily reminder to buzz you. Then open up the book to a random page, or open a random file.

It’s the idea of receiving a cool and inspiring idea every day that I find most exciting. And for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been getting a ton of ideas.

Note, if you use Campaign Logger, you can paste screenshots and images right into a Log Entry or a Page. On Windows, I use CTRL + SHIFT + S to select specific screen area for great screenshots. I also use TinyPng to shrinkify big image files to save space and improve browser responsiveness.

So there you have it. A quick way to inspire yourself on the regular. And try out that goal-verification method. I found it valuable.

Cheers,
Johnn
roleplayingtips.com
https://discord.gg/6MxTRAqQ76
Have more fun at every game!

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