MS5: EXPLOITATION - ACTUAL PLAY REPORT (DEV LOG)

ACTUAL PLAY: THE EXPLOITATION PROTOCOL

A Solo Session with Claude AI as Game Master

I just finished my first complete playthrough of MS5: Exploitation, and I need to talk about what happened—and how I played it.

THE SETUP:

Instead of traditional solo journaling, I used Claude AI as my game master. Not as a gimmick. As a genuine test of whether the mechanics hold up under pressure and whether AI-assisted play creates something meaningful.

Here’s what happened.

THE FILM:

Generated procedurally (12 × 12 × 12 system):

• Title: The Exploitation Protocol (1974)

• Power: Sexual Degradation - Everything becomes transaction

• Location: Bootleg Lab (being duplicated - 15 copies in progress)

Perfect exploitation-era horror. A pseudo-documentary claiming to expose the "real underground sex trade" in 1970s New York. The power wasn’t possession or ideology—it was participatory corruption. Viewers start seeing all human interaction through the lens of degradation. Love becomes transaction. Trust becomes vulnerability to exploit.

And someone was making copies. Right now. Multiple reels about to hit Times Square grindhouses.

THE WATCHER:

Mid-50s. Thirty years hunting (started in MS1, 1947). Occult Corruption at 4 from decades of exposure. Fresh Paranoia and Majestic Attention (no MS4 import for this playthrough).

Three corruption tracks to manage. Death at 7 on any track. No saves.

THE MISSION:

Claude rolled the opening: 7 (Partial Success, Significant Cost).

My contact led me to a Lower East Side bootleg lab. Fourth floor walkup. Avenue C. Inside: Vincent Casco running a 16mm duplicator. Twelve copies already finished. Three more being made. Two corrupted watchers in the room, all of them viewing the film while working.

They turned to look at me when I entered.

Cost: +1 Paranoia for recognizing the situation was already compromised.

CHOICE 1: NEGOTIATE

I chose to talk Vincent down instead of going in violent. Explained what the film was doing to him. Three days straight watching and copying without sleep or food. The corruption making him complicit.

Claude rolled: 10 (Success, Minor Cost).

Vincent broke through. "Jesus Christ. What is this? I thought it was just another exploitation reel."

But the cost: +1 Majestic Attention. Someone paid Vincent $500 to make these copies. They’d notice when delivery didn’t happen.

CHOICE 2: COMBAT

The two corrupted watchers wouldn’t let me near the films. I told Vincent to kill the projector while I handled them.

Claude rolled: 12 (Victory - Clean Success).

Perfect execution. Woman with box cutter disarmed in seconds. Skinny guy clotheslined into the duplicator. Thirty years of this—my body remembers even when my mind doesn’t.

Projector died. Corrupted watchers came out of their fugue, confused and traumatized.

No injuries. No corruption gained. Clean.

CHOICE 3: THE MONEY PLAY

I paid Vincent $500 cash (my own emergency money) to walk away. Told him to set up shop elsewhere. Told the two watchers to leave and forget this address.

Then I took everything: 12 completed copies, 3 partial copies, 1 original master. Sixteen reels total.

Cost: -1 Resource. +1 Majestic Attention (I interfered with someone’s distribution plan).

CHOICE 4: EMERGENCY DESTRUCTION

As I was loading the films into bags, Claude threw a complication: footsteps on the stairs. Multiple people. Coming up fast.

Vincent’s buyers. Or whoever commissioned the copies.

I made the call: grabbed the original master (shoved it in my jacket), dumped the other fifteen reels, poured film solvent over them, struck a match.

Tried to escape via fire escape.

Claude rolled: 6 (Failure, Consequence).

Window stuck. Broke it with my shoulder. Cut my hand on glass. Got through but they saw me. Two men burst into the room as the films burned. One pulled a gun. Shot at me on the fire escape.

I ran. Films burning behind me. Sirens starting. Black smoke pouring from the building.

Costs: +2 Majestic Attention (major incident, fire, gunshots, FDNY/NYPD investigation). +1 Paranoia (witnesses, they shot at me, they know someone interfered).

But fifteen copies? Destroyed. Confirmed.

CHOICE 5: THE ARCHIVE

Made it to my Brooklyn warehouse. Safe. Treated the cut hand. Made terrible instant coffee at 4 AM.

Decided to document and archive the original master. Case #13. Standard Watcher protocol.

Photographed it. Documented the power. Noted threat assessment: HIGH - Copyable, spreads exponentially, societal corruption potential.

Sealed it with the other twelve films I’ve collected over thirty years.

Then I waited. Let the heat die down.

THE PURSUER:

Forty-eight hours later, I received a package. No return address. Inside: a photograph of me climbing down the fire escape. Night of the fire. Telephoto lens. Someone across the street.

Message: We saw you. We know who you are.

Majestic Attention hit 6. Pursuer threshold.

Claude rolled d6: 5 - Vice Detective (Too Close).

Monday morning. Knock on my door.

Detective Sarah Brooks. NYPD Vice. 40s. Tired eyes. Twenty years on the job.

She’d connected me to the fire. Witnesses. Circumstantial but solid.

And she had something else: a sixteenth copy. Survived the fire. Hidden in a separate case. Found in the debris.

She’d watched it. Fifteen minutes. Evidence review. Had to stop because she started feeling "wrong."

"What kind of films were they making in that lab?" she asked. "And what are you?"

FINAL CHOICE: THE TRUTH

I told her everything. Thirty years hunting occult films. German Expressionist silents that possess viewers. Soviet propaganda that rewrites ideology. Grindhouse horror that corrupts. Real. Supernatural. Dangerous.

"You watched fifteen minutes. Started seeing everyone as exploitation. Transactions. That’s what it does. Fifteen copies were being duplicated. If those hit Times Square? Hundreds of viewers. The corruption spreads exponentially. I burned them."

Claude rolled: 5 (Failure, Consequence).

She didn’t believe me. Not entirely. Rationalized it as MKUltra-style psychological warfare. Government black ops. Not magic.

She pulled out handcuffs. "I’m taking you in."

But she looked at the film canister. The 16th copy. And hesitated.

"I can’t let this go into Evidence. If other cops watch it..."

I made an offer: "We burn it together. Right here. Right now. Then I come in quietly. You know what happens if that film spreads."

She agreed.

THE BURNING:

Bathtub. Metal basin. Unspool the film. Lighter fluid. Strike a match.

Black smoke. Chemical stink. Three minutes.

The 16th copy became ash.

Detective Brooks exhaled: "I can feel it. It’s lighter. Like something was pressing on the room and now it’s gone."

She took me in for questioning. Her partner interviewed me. I told a grounded version: film historian tracking illegal bootleg operations, got violent, fire started in chaos.

No physical evidence. No film. No witnesses willing to testify.

They let me go. "Stay in New York. Don’t burn down any more buildings."

Outside the precinct, Brooks handed me her card.

"If you come across anything like that again, call me first. We’ll work together. Quietly."

New Contact: Detective Sarah Brooks, NYPD Vice.

MISSION COMPLETE:

✅ Film destroyed (16 copies eliminated)

✅ Original archived (Case #13, documented)

✅ Threat contained (no copies in circulation)

✅ Watcher survived (rare!)

✅ New ally gained (NYPD inside contact)

Final Stats:

• Occult Corruption: 4 (survived without viewing)

• Paranoia: 2 (manageable)

• Majestic Attention: 6 (resolved cooperatively)

• Resources: 2

• Contacts: 3 (including Detective Brooks)

• Archive: 13 films

WHAT CLAUDE AI AS GM PROVIDED:

Here’s why this worked better than traditional solo journaling:

1. GENUINE UNPREDICTABILITY

I didn’t know what would happen. Claude rolled dice using true randomization. The opening 7, the combat 12, the escape 6, the convincing Brooks 5—all genuinely random. I couldn’t fudge results. I couldn’t steer toward outcomes I preferred. The snake eyes on the escape? I would have been tempted to reroll with physical dice. Claude doesn’t allow that.

2. DYNAMIC CONSEQUENCES

When I paid Vincent $500, Claude immediately extrapolated: "Someone paid him to make these. They’ll notice." That became the Majestic Attention increase and the eventual photograph/Pursuer. I didn’t have to imagine consequences—Claude tracked them and made them matter three scenes later.

3. MECHANICAL CONSISTENCY

Three corruption tracks. Six-point death threshold. Combat results. Decision outcomes. Resource depletion. Claude never forgot a rule, never missed a trigger, always applied costs exactly as the game specified. Zero cognitive load for me—I could focus entirely on narrative choices.

4. REACTIVE STORYTELLING

When I chose to negotiate instead of fight, Claude didn’t just apply the roll—it created Vincent’s breakthrough moment ("I’ve been here three days?") and the corrupted watchers’ protective response. When I chose emergency destruction, Claude threw the complication of buyers arriving at exactly the wrong moment. The story bent around my choices while maintaining internal logic.

5. DRAMATIC TIMING

The photograph arriving forty-eight hours later. The Pursuer being a cop who’d already been exposed to the film. The 16th copy surviving as leverage. Claude understood narrative pacing. Knew when to hit me with complications. When to let me breathe. When to escalate.

6. THE FINAL CONFRONTATION

Detective Brooks as Pursuer was perfect. Not an enemy to fight—a person to convince. Someone who’d felt the corruption but couldn’t accept the supernatural explanation. The choice to burn the film together created a shared moment that turned an antagonist into an ally. Claude understood that was more interesting than combat.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR SOLO PLAY:

I’ve played MS3 and MS5 now with Claude as GM. Both times, the experience was:

• Faster than pure journaling (no stopping to interpret prompts)

• More dynamic than random tables (consequences extrapolated in real-time)

• Mechanically rigorous (zero rules forgetting)

• Narratively coherent (story threads tracked across scenes)

• Genuinely challenging (couldn’t game the system)

It’s still solo play. I’m alone making all player decisions. But Claude removes the referee burden. I don’t have to interpret oracle results, track corruption math, remember what happened three scenes ago, or decide what "partial success" means in this context. Claude handles that. I just play my character and make choices.

The result: I experienced MS5 as a player, not a designer. I was surprised by outcomes. I made desperate choices under pressure. I felt the weight of consequences accumulating. The Watcher’s exhaustion was my exhaustion.

That’s good game design. When the creator can play their own game and be surprised.

COMPARISON TO TRADITIONAL SOLO:

Traditional solo journaling (Thousand Year Old Vampire, Wretched & Alone, etc.) is great. Meditative. Creative. You build the story through prompts and interpretation.

But it’s limited by your imagination and energy. You can’t surprise yourself. You know what’s on the tables. You might unconsciously steer toward outcomes you prefer.

Claude as GM removes those limitations. The dice are truly random. The consequences are genuinely unexpected. The story emerges from the system rather than from my intentions.

It’s collaborative storytelling where your collaborator is tireless, consistent, and impartial.

THE CORRUPTION SYSTEM WORKS:

Managing three corruption tracks was genuinely tense. I stayed at Occult 4 the entire mission by avoiding viewing the film. But Paranoia climbed from 0 to 2 (witnesses, exposure, investigation). Majestic Attention escalated from 0 to 6 (fire, gunshots, photograph, Pursuer arrival).

Every choice had costs. Every success came with complications. The pressure mounted scene by scene.

At no point did I feel safe. Even the clean combat victory (12) just meant "no immediate cost"—but the buyers were already on the stairs.

Death at corruption 7 is brutal but fair. I saw it coming. Could have chosen differently. Chose the mission over safety. That’s the Watcher’s curse.

REPLAYABILITY CONFIRMED:

This was one mission from 1,728 possible combinations in MS5 alone. Different title/power/location would create completely different scenarios. Add Occult 5-6 (viewing = combat). Add Paranoia 5-6 (can’t use Contacts). Add different Majestic relationships from MS4 import.

The procedural skeleton is strong enough to support infinite variations. The mechanics are tight enough to create consistent challenge. The narrative space is open enough for genuine player agency.

I’ll play MS5 again. Different film. Different choices. Different outcome.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

MS5: Exploitation is the most mechanically complex game in the series (three corruption tracks, post-Watergate paranoia themes, Majestic relationship complications). It’s also the most rewarding when you thread the needle and survive.

Playing with Claude AI as GM made it feel like a real RPG session rather than a solo journaling exercise. The unpredictability, the consequence tracking, the narrative coherence—all elevated the experience.

If you’re playing Magick Shadows (any game in the series), consider trying it with Claude or another AI assistant as your GM. It’s not replacing human creativity. It’s amplifying the game’s strengths while removing the cognitive load of self-refereeing.

The games work solo. They work even better with an impartial, tireless, mechanically rigorous game master.

Detective Brooks is now my inside contact at NYPD Vice. The Archive holds thirteen cursed films. I’m mid-50s, corrupted, paranoid, and being watched.

MS6: The New Flesh (1983) awaits. Six more years. Body horror. VHS revolution. Five possible endings.

The hunt continues.

-Julian

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P.S. - If you try Claude AI as GM for Magick Shadows, let me know how it goes. I’m genuinely curious if others find the same value I did.

P.P.S. - Detective Brooks felt the corruption from fifteen minutes of exposure. She stopped watching. Most people can’t. That’s the difference between surviving and becoming something else.