Club Benefits
Role-playing games like "The Elder Scrolls," "Fallout," "The Outer Worlds" and "Kingdom Come: Deliverance" have a chokehold on me. I can lose hundreds of hours building a character from scratch, leveling up skills and unlocking new abilities through quests, combat and exploration.
The appeal is this: every action matters. Fight smarter, complete objectives, improve your stats — and watch your character evolve.
That’s what sparked a lightbulb moment: what if I could bring that same progression system into real life? That's when I asked ChatGPT to turn my real-life week into a video game.
I fed it everything it needed to know about me — my habits, goals, strengths and weak spots — and asked it to design a system of “quests,” skill upgrades and experience points based on my daily behavior.
By the end of the week, I was surprised by how closely my real life mirrored the arc of a Bethesda-style RPG (role playing game) protagonist — and how motivating it felt to treat everyday tasks like missions instead of chores.
ChatGPT built out acampaign for me to follow that reflected my every day
To kickstart my real-life RPG adventure, I presented ChatGPT with this prompt:
“Turn my real life into an RPG. Create a character sheet with stats (health, productivity, charisma, wealth, and creativity), experience points, a leveling system, daily quests, and weekly boss battles.”
The AI chatbot took the form of a Dungeons & Dragons “Dungeon Master” and went to work laying out a gameplan for me to follow for seven days.
It remembered my career as a journalist, my specialization in writing about AI and even my central location. ChatGPT defined my class as a “Digital Storyteller,” bestowed the subclass of an “AI Systems Architect” upon me, classified my alignment as a “Chaotic Productive,” noted that my starting location is Queens, NY, and chose three primary guilds for me (Writing, Tech Media and Creative Strategy).
The AI started me out as a level five “Human Creative” with stats scaled from 1-100. I was thrilled to see my AI real-life game maker give me high to decent stats across Creativity (88), Productivity (81), Charisma (76), and Health (72). I certainly had a lot of work to do to increase my Wealth stat since it started at a stable yet unimpressive level of 64.
To increase that number, ChatGPT notified me of a major experience opportunity that could be gained by investing my money and expanding my writing via freelance opportunities. I liked the fact that each stat came with a description, a method that could gain me XP in that area, an unlockable perk, and more.
For example, my productivity stat noted that I’m a high-output writer, I can gain +10 Focus points whenever I work toward completing defined journalist goals, and I’ll be dealt with -15 HP points whenever I’m multitasking. To rise from level five to six, ChatGPT listed out a bunch of tasks that could give me the extra XP needed to do so.
Those tasks included:
- Write and publish an article: +300 XP
- Apply to a job or pitch a freelance piece: +150 XP
- Complete deep work session (90+ min): +100 XP
- Gym session or 8k+ steps: +75 XP
- Learn a new AI workflow: +125 XP
It also made it clear that doomscrolling on my phone for 30+ minutes would result in me losing 40 XP, and not completing a defined work-related task would cause me to lose 25 XP.
Every time I leveled up, ChatGPT told me to assign myself five kill points that could then be poured into any of my stats, acquire one new ability, and take on one new passive buff.
An example of the unlockable abilities presented to me included:
- Level 6 Ability: “Momentum Chain”: 3 productive tasks in a row = +25% XP bonus
- Level 7 Passive: “Editor’s Edge”: Headlines convert 10% better (real-world effect: more clicks, stronger pitches)
- Level 10 Title: “Content Architect”: Unlocks income multiplier quests
I adjusted my daily behaviors to “gain XP” and boost my productivity levels
One area I made sure to pay special attention to was the daily quests section, which listed out a bunch of activities I could tend to that would gift me different amounts of XP.
Easy quests awarded me 50-100 XP, medium difficulty quests gifted me with 150-250 XP, and hard mode-theme quests blessed me with 300+ XP. By making it a personal goal to reach 1000 XP to reach my next level, I then made it a habit of executing a bunch of assorted objectives.
I had no problem knocking out all the easy quests every day, which included writing at least 300 words for an article, taking a 20-minute walk during my break, and reading at least 10 pages of a book.
Three days out of the week, I completed the medium objectives that tasked me with pitching an original article idea and prepping a long-form piece. The main hard-mode task I had no issue completing every day was publishing a full article. It was easy to gain 600 XP since I got used to publishing two articles per day during the week.
Another clever way ChatGPT’s real-life RPG layout got me to become more productive was by listing “boss battles” that I could overcome by finishing certain objectives. And in return, I was gifted with a single point for a stat and XP: Here’s the list of bosses that I was presented with:
- Boss 1: The Gatekeeper, Objective: Pitch 5 outlets, Reward: +1 Wealth Stat and +500 XP
- Boss 2: The Distraction Hydra, Objective: 5 days with <1 hour social scroll, Reward: +1 Productivity and unlock “Flow State” buff
- Boss 3: The Energy Vampire, Objective: 4 workouts + consistent sleep, Reward: +1 Health and +200 XP
- Boss 4: The Budget Warlord, Objective: Track all spending for 7 days + optimize one expense, Reward: +1 Wealth and unlock “Investor Path” side quest
With the assistance of ChatGPT’s printable character sheet, it became easier to track all the XP I gained from overcoming certain bosses. Although it proved difficult, I found the will to overcome the Distraction Hydra, Energy Vampire, and Budget Warlord.
After a while, I started to notice how I refrained from scrolling through Twitter first thing in the morning, pulled off some quick at-home workouts, got more hours of sleep, and kept track of all my purchases simply by tracking them through my bank apps.
Final thoughts
Using ChatGPT to transform my daily goals into a gameplay experience comparable to something developed by Obsidian Entertainment (I love The Outer Worlds 2!) ended up working like a charm. I already considered myself a pretty efficient guy, but sticking to the rules established by the custom-made real-life RPG made me take more notice of fulfilling additional tasks that I never considered beforehand.
Now that I’ve completed the casual difficulty presented to me in one week, I’m ready to step it up and see if I can endure the competitive one. Can I reach the ultimate classification of “Elite Digital Strategist” at the end of 2026?
Only time will tell…
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