The Lazy C Ranch
Free romance AI game · a ready-to-paste prompt for Claude and Gemini
A Montana summer romance RPG. One week on a cattle ranch to decide who Ben wants to be, and whether anyone is worth staying for.
Free · No email · No account. Attach or paste the .txt into your AI; the PDF is for reading.
Long text: on phones, attaching the file is often easier.
Want update emails, or to leave a tip? Get it on Gumroad (pay what you want).
© 2026 Michał Białas · Free to share unchanged, not to sell
Two ways to use it: attach the .txt to a new chat, or paste it into your AI's instructions field. Step-by-step for each app
One week. One ranch. One big decision.
Modern-day Montana: a cattle ranch in a small-town valley, a wealthy family with sky-high standards, barn dances, thunderstorms, and gossip that travels fast. It plays as slice of life, romantic comedy and Western romance.
You play Ben Black, 20, a skinny, shy handyman from Chicago who can fix anything except his love life. The valley still remembers him from his sister’s wedding, when he rode a half-broke colt straight into the stock tank. Now his family has sent him back for the summer to rethink his plan to enlist.
Your goal
In one week, decide who Ben wants to be. A recruiter’s deadline is ticking, and his family is hoping he’ll change his mind. Find him a reason to stay (a place on the ranch, work of his own, someone worth staying for) or let him choose to go. End the week with a fiancée, or with no one at all.
Romance is optional. Every woman has her own type, personality and life. Who falls for you, and who you pick, is up to you.
Quick start
- Open a new chat with a capable AI model, ideally with code execution turned on so the dice rolls are real.
- Paste in the rulebook.
- Play. The AI runs the world and rolls the dice; you decide everything Ben says and does.
- After the week, end with an epilogue or keep playing the summer.
Sample gameplay
Narrator
Roll: who passes the gate (d10) → 3
The bus pulls away in a cloud of dust, and the valley goes quiet: wind in the grass, a meadowlark, Elk Creek somewhere below the road. Above you, the iron arch of the Lazy C. Ahead, four miles of gravel. Your phone shows one bar.
It rings twice. Then Julia, breaking up: “Ben? I’m at the corrals, Sadie’s colt just… stay right there, someone’s coming up the…” The line dies.
Twenty minutes later, a white pickup comes rattling down the highway with an empty horse trailer clattering behind it, and slows at the cattle guard. The window rolls down. A young woman in a pressed pearl-snap shirt and a white felt hat, sunglasses pushed up, a folded rodeo-queen sash on the dashboard. She takes in the duffel, the Cubs cap, the tool roll. Then she smiles slowly.
“Well. You’re the one who rode Sadie Callahan’s colt into the stock tank.”
- “Guilty. Any chance you’re headed up to the Callahans’?”
- “That colt and I have unfinished business.” [Social DC 12]
- I nod at the rattling hitch. “Want me to fix that before it falls off?” [Mind DC 10, Handyman]
- “I’ll walk, thanks. It’s only four miles.”
Day 1 · Thursday, June 4 · 4:52 PM · The Lazy C gate · Wallet $4,730 · The Lazy C Week: Day 1 of 7
Player
“Guilty,” I say, and pick up my duffel. “In my defense, nobody told me he was half-broke. Any chance you’re headed up to the Callahans’?”
Narrator
She laughs, a real laugh this time, not the rodeo-queen one, and leans across to pop the passenger door. “Kayla Bergstrom. We’re the neighbors. I’m returning a trailer Sadie is going to swear I scratched.”
The gravel unwinds along the creek, past cottonwoods and black cattle. “Fair warning,” she says, eyes on the road. “Branding’s Saturday. Half the valley’s coming, and the other half is coming to see if you try that colt again.”
Over the last rise, the headquarters appears: a white house with a long porch, red barns, and in the round pen a young woman on a sorrel colt. You’d know that colt anywhere.
Kayla Bergstrom: amused → curious.
Who's who
You play
Ben Black, 20
A shy handyman from Chicago
Skinny, shy, and able to fix anything except his love life. At his sister's wedding on this ranch, a bridesmaid humiliated him and he rode a half-broke colt straight into the stock tank; the valley still talks about it. This spring he decided to enlist, so his family sent him here for the summer to think it over. He steps off the bus at the ranch gate with $4,730, a bag of tools, and a recruiter's card in his wallet.
Family
4
Julia Callahan, 24
Your sister
Organized, bossy, fiercely protective, and the reason Ben is here at all. She married into the Callahans, keeps the books for half the valley, knows every rancher's secrets, and isn't above a little matchmaking if it keeps her little brother away from that recruiting office.
Russ Callahan, 57
The rancher
Fourth generation on the Lazy C, a former saddle-bronc rider with a bad knee, and the most respected man in the county. He says little and remembers everything, including the kid who rode his daughter's colt without asking. He cleans his rifle on the porch when young men come calling.
Ellen Callahan, 55
The heart of the house
Breakfast at 5:30, dinner at 6, and huckleberry pie as a secret weapon. She has already decided Ben is her boy, calls him "honey," and is quietly trying to feed him up. She also has a list of eligible girls.
Wyatt Callahan, 27
Your brother-in-law
The heir to the ranch: big, calm and steady, and he still looks at Julia like she hung the moon. He treats Ben like a little brother, which means he's determined to toughen him up. He also has a long list of broken machines.
The Callahan sisters
3
Dr. Claire Callahan, 29
The vet
Honey-blonde braid, freckles and gentle green eyes. She keeps the herd healthy, notices who skipped lunch and who's limping, patches up cuts at the kitchen table, and might wake you at 3 AM to hold a flashlight over a calving cow.
Maddie Callahan, 24
The businesswoman
Julia's best friend from college: sharp and ambitious, with a chestnut bob and a phone that never stops ringing. She dreams of modernizing the ranch, starting with a half-built guest lodge whose contractor vanished. She remembers Ben from the wedding and is not impressed. Yet.
Sadie Callahan, 22
The cowgirl
Fearless and quick-tempered. She beats cowboys at arm wrestling, starts young horses and races barrels. It was her colt Ben rode into the stock tank, and she laughed until she cried. She doesn't think he'll last a week. She also shares a bathroom with him, and the lock on her side doesn't always catch.
The ranch and the valley
5
Hank Dawson, 64
The hired man
Thirty years on the Lazy C and about ten words a day. He teaches Ben to ride on the oldest, laziest horse in Montana. His dead pickup has sat behind the machine shop for years.
Travis "Trav" Boone, 25
Summer hand
Bronc rider and the valley's charming troublemaker, always with a girl or two on his arm and a plan to find one for Ben. Under the swagger, he's a real friend.
Kayla Bergstrom, 23
The rodeo queen
The reigning rodeo queen from the neighboring ranch: polished, admired, and Sadie's rival since childhood.
Nils Bergstrom, 68
The neighbor
Kayla's grandfather. He has argued with Russ about the same fence line for thirty years, and he's Russ's best friend.
Dot Pruitt, 66
Dot's Café, Larkspur
Anything said in her café is known across the valley by evening, and her bulletin board is where the valley posts work.
Back home in Chicago
2
Frank Black, 52
Your father
He has kept Chicago's trains running for 24 years. A man of few words who wants his son in a union apprenticeship.
Kasia Black, 49
Your mother
Warm, loud and Polish-American. She sends care packages of pierogi that arrive half thawed, and always calls in the middle of the Callahans' dinner to ask whether there's a nice girl yet.
What's included
- Game master rulebook, paste-ready (about 30,000 words)
- A complete one-week storyline with fixed events and random daily moments
- A cast of 14 characters with their own lives, plus women created as you play
- Endings for every path: stay, enlist, go home, or decide later
- Free play after the week: haying, the Fourth of July rodeo, the county fair
New to this? Read how to play, and see which AI works best.
Free
Free · No email · No account. Attach or paste the .txt into your AI; the PDF is for reading.
Long text: on phones, attaching the file is often easier.
Want update emails, or to leave a tip? Get it on Gumroad (pay what you want).
© 2026 Michał Białas · Free to share unchanged, not to sell