DELPHI - ORACLE OF ORACLES!

Why I Wrote DELPHI

I didn’t sit down one morning and decide to “design a system-agnostic oracle engine”.

It had been happening for AGES. But all just a bit nebulous. And then the triumvirate of tables it is built on clicked into place last weekend, while musing about the design of a new BOARD GAME I’m working on. So I sorted the notes, called on the usual suspects to give it a go… And now here it is.

DELPHI exists because I kept bouncing off tools that were almost right. Clever, powerful, beautifully thought through. But they all seemed to assume a certain kind of player. A certain kind of patience. A certain willingness to be guided, nudged, boxed in, or gently shepherded toward a “correct” outcome.

I don’t play like that.

I like friction. I like uncertainty that actually bites. I like tools that ask me what I’m trying to do, then look me in the eye and say, “Alright. Let’s see what happens.”

Most oracle systems answer questions. DELPHI doesn’t. It interrogates intent.

Over the years, I’ve played solo. I’ve played GMless. I’ve played in tiny groups of friends who trust each other enough to take narrative risks. And in every case, the most interesting moments didn’t come from tables or clever prompts. They came from moments where someone said, “Okay, what are we really trying to do here?” and everyone went quiet.

That’s the moment DELPHI is built around.

I wanted a system that assumed intelligence and creativity at the table. One that didn’t hand-hold, didn’t pretend to be your imagination, and didn’t apologise for asking a bit of work from you. A tool that escalates, remembers, pressures, and pushes back.

I also wanted something modular enough to sit under any genre without getting in the way. Sci-fi. Folk horror. Kitchen-sink realism. Mythic nonsense. DELPHI doesn’t care. It just watches the pressure build.

The other thing, and this matters, is that I wanted something alive.

DELPHI is a living document because it has to be. It’s already changed through play. It will change again through going playtest feedback. I’m not interested in pretending this is a sacred text carved into stone. It’s a working engine. It breathes. It learns. It sharpens itself over time.

Some people will bounce off it. That’s fine. Genuinely.

DELPHI isn’t trying to be everything to everyone. It’s for people who like leaning into uncertainty, who don’t need permission to make bold narrative calls, and who are happy when the system occasionally says, “No. Worse than that.”

If that sounds like you, then this thing was written for you.

If not, there are plenty of gentler oracles out there. I use some of them myself.

But this one? This one exists because I wanted a tool that would meet me where I play. And once I started building it, I realised I probably wasn’t alone.

More soon. Much more.

— Mark Quire Wharf Street, December 2025