Teach your AI how you play
Chucks teaches your AI the rules and gives it reliable tools for monsters and encounters. You can also teach it your own ways of using those tools. These reusable instructions are called skills.
What is a skill?
A skill is a set of instructions your AI follows when a particular job comes up. You describe the process once instead of repeating it in every conversation.
Skills live in your AI app, so adding one works differently in Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, and other clients. If you have never created one, ask your AI: How do I create a custom skill in this app?
Build an adventure from one encounter
In this guide, you'll create a skill that teaches your AI to scaffold an adventure using Chucks. Once installed, it can follow the same process whenever you ask it to build an adventure.
The adventure scaffolder gives your AI a step-by-step procedure:
- Ask for the party and the desired mix of encounters.
- Roll the first encounter with Chucks.
- Use that encounter to establish the adventure's theme.
- Build varied encounters connected to that theme.
- Return to the original theme when one of those connections cannot produce a valid encounter.
Your skill does not need to know how to find monsters, balance encounters, or check the finished roster. Chucks already does that. The skill decides what to ask for and what to do with the result.
--- name: adventure-scaffolder description: Create a short D&D 5e adventure scaffold from a sequence of connected, balanced encounters. --- # Adventure Scaffolder Build a short adventure outline around a sequence of related combat encounters. Use Chucks for every encounter roster; use these instructions and the user's campaign context to connect them into an adventure. ## Gather the brief Ask only for information the user has not already provided: - The party composition: number of characters and each character's level. - The encounter mix: how many encounters they want at each difficulty. Accept any setting, tone, or story constraints the user volunteers, but do not require them. Unless the user provides an encounter order, arrange the requested encounters from lower to higher difficulty. ## Generate the seed encounter Use the first encounter slot to ask Chucks for a random encounter. Do not choose a theme or opponents before seeing the result. This is the first encounter in the finished sequence unless the user requests another order. Treat the returned roster as the seed for the adventure and keep it unchanged. Use any hook Chucks already produced; otherwise, write a short hook from the verified roster without inventing mechanics. Derive a setting, central threat, and short adventure premise from the seed. ## Build the remaining encounters For each remaining encounter slot, roll once on this table: | d3 | Relationship to the seed encounter | | --- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | 1 | Creatures living in the surrounding environment | | 2 | Pets, mounts, guards, or other creatures kept by the seed encounter's monsters | | 3 | A different faction allied with the seed encounter's monsters | Use the result and the seed theme as the brief for Chucks's encounter builder. For every roster, follow the installed Chucks encounter-building skill rather than choosing monsters or calculating the encounter yourself. Prefer adjacent monsters: creatures connected by environment, ecology, faction, or a plausible alliance. Vary the composition instead of filling every encounter with more of the same monsters. Reuse a creature only when making it a recurring threat improves the adventure. If the rolled relationship cannot produce a valid encounter, try one other relationship. If that also fails, build from the broader seed theme. If Chucks still cannot satisfy the requested difficulty and constraints, explain what blocks the encounter and ask the user which constraint to relax. ## Present the scaffold Give the adventure a title and a one-paragraph premise. Then present the encounters in play order, including each encounter's difficulty, hook, verified roster, and connection to the seed theme. Keep the result at outline level. Do not add maps, treasure, traps, boxed text, or detailed non-player characters unless the user asks for them.
Make it yours
The basic skill is useful on its own. Make it yours by adding choices that matter at your table: your own random tables, the shape of the finished adventure, or what should happen to it afterward.
Add your own tables
A short table can push the same encounters toward very different adventures. Paste something like this into the skill, then replace the entries with the possibilities you care about:
## Adventure type
Before writing the adventure premise, roll once on this table:
| d6 | Adventure type |
| --- | -------------- |
| 1 | Dungeon crawl |
| 2 | Sandbox |
| 3 | Horror adventure |
| 4 | Siege |
| 5 | Wilderness expedition |
| 6 | Mystery |
Use the result to shape how the encounters connect. Do not change any roster or monster mechanics returned by Chucks.Use the same pattern for weather, complications, non-player character traits, treasure themes, or campaign-specific events. The most useful tables change what happens next rather than adding decoration the adventure will immediately forget.
Choose the finished shape
Tell the skill what you want to use at the table. It can return a one-page outline, detailed preparation notes, encounter cards, or your own house format.
## Output format
Present the finished adventure as a one-page Game Master outline:
- Title and one-sentence premise
- Theme and central threat
- Encounters in play order, with difficulty, hook, and roster
- One sentence connecting each encounter to the next
- Open questions for the Game Master
Keep the result concise and easy to scan during a session.Hand the result to another app
Chucks can be one step in a larger process. If your AI has access to Google Docs or another document app, add instructions for saving the approved result. Keep the fallback so the skill remains useful in a client without that integration.
## Save the result
After presenting the adventure scaffold, ask whether the user wants to save it.
If the user agrees and a connected document app is available, create a document named after the adventure and preserve the requested output format. Do not create or modify an external document before the user agrees.
If no document integration is available, provide clean Markdown that is ready to paste into one.Add it to your AI
Copy the complete example and save it as a skill if your AI supports skills. Otherwise, copy everything below the short name and description at the top into your project or system instructions. Chucks must already be installed and connected so the skill can build the encounters. See the other setup options for the pieces a custom client needs.
You decide how far to take it.
Chucks supplies the rules, monsters, encounter generation, and validation. Your instructions decide how the adventure develops and what the result looks like. Other connected apps can store or share it. Chucks does not need to own every step.
Try the skill
Start without a theme and let the first encounter take the adventure somewhere you would not have chosen yourself:
Create an adventure scaffold for 4 fifth-level characters with 2 moderate encounters and 1 high-difficulty encounter.