You sit down with Thinking, Fast and Slow, determined to finally finish it this time. Highlighter ready. Coffee hot. Twenty minutes in, the concepts are blurring together and you can’t remember a single thing from yesterday’s chapter.
A Redditor named monskull_ hit this exact wall. The original poster loaded the book into NotebookLM, had it explain the core ideas, and then asked one unexpected question: “Can it make this into a game?” After several rounds of iteration, what came out was a playable RPG that actually teaches you the book’s concepts, examples, and theories while you play through an engaging story.
I spotted this in r/PromptEngineering and couldn’t stop thinking about it.
🎮 Why This Works Better Than a Summary
Most people reach for AI summaries when a book gets dense. The result is a clean bullet list you nod at and promptly forget. Summaries are passive. Your brain doesn’t have to do much.
What monskull_ built is different. By turning Thinking, Fast and Slow‘s frameworks into story decisions and character choices, the learning becomes active. You’re not reading about cognitive biases; you’re making a decision that triggers one. That’s when the concept actually sticks somewhere useful in your memory.
The community response said everything. One commenter immediately left to apply the method to their own backlog of unread books. Another called it “pretty amazing.” This is hitting something real: most people don’t hate learning, they hate passive learning. The moment you add stakes and a character, the whole thing changes.
🧭 How to Do It Yourself
The original poster was upfront that the first attempt wasn’t great. It took multiple rounds of iteration to land on something genuinely fun. Here’s the approach:
- Load the book into NotebookLM. Upload the PDF and ask it to explain the key concepts in plain language first. This gives you a clear map of what needs to be represented in the game, and it helps the AI ground its creative output in the actual source material.
- Make your first game request. Try something like: “Turn these concepts into an interactive RPG story where I play a character making choices that reflect the book’s core ideas.” The first version will probably feel generic. That’s normal.
- Iterate on the prompt. This is where the real work happens. The original creator ran multiple rounds of refinement. Push for named characters with distinct personalities, decision points that map to specific theories from the book, and consequences that make each concept click through experience rather than explanation.
- Test it on someone else. The author shared the prompt with a friend, who immediately started sending screenshots of the wild characters and plot twists he was generating. If someone else finds it entertaining without any context, the prompt is working. If they look confused, go back to step three.
- Access the full example. The original Reddit post links directly to a ChatGPT session showing the complete prompt and a live game example. You can see exactly what the author built, what the story looks like, and how the book’s concepts surface through the gameplay. Find the thread in r/PromptEngineering; the link is in monskull_’s post.
💡 Tips and Tricks
A few things worth knowing before you try this:
Pick the right kind of book. Dense non-fiction with clear frameworks works best: Thinking, Fast and Slow, Atomic Habits, The 48 Laws of Power. Books where ideas map naturally to decisions and consequences. Linear narratives with thin conceptual content are harder to gamify and usually produce shallower results.
Don’t settle for version one. The original poster was clear about this. The first output wasn’t good enough to share. Version three or four is where the interesting stuff shows up. Budget for iteration from the start.
Add a lesson debrief to each scene. Ask the AI to briefly explain, at the end of each story beat, which concept you just encountered and why the character’s decision reflected it. This keeps the game educational rather than just entertaining, and gives you a moment to actually process what you played through.
Run it with a friend. The same starting prompt generates completely different stories depending on the choices each person makes. Comparing outcomes and comparing which concepts surfaced for each player is genuinely entertaining. It also doubles the learning surface.
Use it as an entry point, not a replacement. The RPG version gets the key ideas into your head in a memorable way. Going back to the real chapter afterward is a lot easier when you’ve already lived through a version of the concept.
🚀 Go Find the Thread
The full prompt and live example session are in the original Reddit discussion in r/PromptEngineering; search for monskull_’s post about turning Thinking, Fast and Slow into an RPG. The ChatGPT link in the post shows you exactly what the author built and how it plays out.
What book have you been meaning to read but keep putting off? That’s your candidate.
I got bored reading Thinking, Fast and Slow, so I turned it into a playable RPG using NotebookLM (Prompt Included!)
by u/monskull_ in PromptEngineering