Reusing old electronic hardware is a great way to help the planet, as it avoids sending more e-waste to landfills. Sometimes, you can find really fun ways to do it, too—like turning an old laptop into a MU/TH/UR 6000 terminal from the Alien universe.
That’s what I did this past weekend for a tabletop RPG session, repurposing an old 2018 HP Spectre x360 laptop and powering the whole thing with ChatGPT. It went brilliantly. Here’s how I did it—and if you want to give it a try, how you can do it, too.
What’s the story, MUTHUR?
I love tabletop roleplaying. I have several ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, I’ve run a bunch of Call of Cthulhu investigations over the years, and I’ve dabbled in a few one-off megagames that were fantastic fun. But one game I’ve always wanted to run? Alien RPG.
I bought the starter set in 2019 and spent the next few years repeatedly planning for that first game that always got postponed. Finally, I pulled it out just as the Evolved Edition hit Kickstarter and was able to run the excellent “cinematic scenario” called “Chariots of the Gods.”
Note: I’m keeping this as spoiler-free as I can, but if you’re going to play this at some point, maybe skip down to the next section.
The setting for Chariots of the Gods involves a derelict spaceship and, like most ships in the Alien universe, this one has a MUTHUR computer system at its core that’s full of interesting information. Although I like to think I do a fantastic interpretation of the robotic MUTHUR voice system, I thought it would be a lot of fun to actually make one.
My programming is rudimentary at best, though, so coding a terminal from scratch was out. But I’m pretty good at prompting ChatGPT, so over the course of a couple of months I crafted a custom GPT that had all the information it needed to act like a retro-70s-future computer terminal.
How I built MUTHUR
Jon Martindale / Foundry
“This GPT model will act as the Weyland (Key: Not Weyland-Yutani) MUTHER 2000 terminal aboard the USCSS Cronos for an Alien RPG game,” read the custom GPT instructions. “Responses must look like a 1970s/1980s terminal display but must not use Markdown code blocks” to avoid snippets that break immersion.
I told it to add periodic delays, random corrupted characters, and ASCII symbols to generate boxes and layout elements. I gave it a list of commands players could give it and I told it to disregard everything else. I loaded each of those commands with the information the players would need in clear bullet points, then asked ChatGPT to extrapolate that data into a log system, ship status, and personnel records.
You can see it in action with my MUTHUR GPT here.
It worked fantastically well! ChatGPT built out a whole system of 10 logs from various characters and only embellished a little. I gave it several test runs and tweaked the wording of its instructions to avoid giving the players too much information too early. I also added an admin override code in case I needed to update its instructions mid-game (e.g., if the players ended up doing something unexpected).
Jon Martindale / Foundry
The finishing touch was installing the GPThemes Chrome extension to remove some of the on-screen elements that make it look like a ChatGPT window and give it a green tinge instead. Icing on the cake!
Bringing MUTHUR to life
Using an old touchscreen laptop for all this is great, but really that’s far too advanced technology for the retro-future vibe of the Alien universe. For that, I really needed a CRT monitor… but my partner would kill me if I tried justifying something like that for a one-off RPG.
So I opted for the next best option, which was to craft one myself out of cardboard, spray paint, and Weyland-Yutani stickers. I propped the laptop up inside using that handy laptop stand I reviewed recently. I also bought a retro PS/2 keyboard off eBay with yellowed plastic and hooked it up using a PS/2-to-USB adapter.
The overall effect was decidedly janky, retro-looking, and just perfect for the kind of scenario we were running: an ancient spaceship with a busted old computer. But what secrets might it hold?
Jon Martindale / Foundry
This culminated in a fantastic moment in-game where the corporate liaison character was poring through the records while I roleplayed with some other characters on the other side of the room. Another player sidled over to the corporate stooge to read over their shoulder, and they quickly cleared the screen to hide what they were up to.
Very Alien. Very tabletop. Despite the cardboard taking up just as much room as a CRT, I’m going to have to keep it around. I have a feeling MUTHUR will make a reappearance in future games, too.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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