Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks Is Talking About AI in D&D Again

Chris Cocks, the CEO of Hasbro, is talking about the usage of AI in Dungeons & Dragons again. In a recent interview with Semafor, Cocks once again brought up potential usage of AI in D&D and other Hasbro brands. Cocks described himself as an "AI bull" and offered up a potential subscription service that uses AI to enrich D&D campaigns as a way to integrate AI. The full section of Semafor's interview is below:

Smartphone screens are not the toy industry’s only technology challenge. Cocks uses artificial intelligence tools to generate storylines, art, and voices for his D&D characters and hails AI as “a great leveler for user-generated content.”

Current AI platforms are failing to reward creators for their work, “but I think that’s solvable,” he says, describing himself as “an AI bull” who believes the technology will extend the reach of Hasbro’s brands. That could include subscription services letting other Dungeon Masters enrich their D&D campaigns, or offerings to let parents customize Peppa Pig animations. “It’s supercharging fandom,” he says, “and I think that’s just net good for the brand.”

The D&D design team and others involved with D&D at Wizards of the Coast have repeatedly stood by a statement posted back in 2023 that said that D&D was made by humans for humans. The full, official stance on AI in D&D by the D&D team can be found below.

For 50 years, D&D has been built on the innovation, ingenuity, and hard work of talented people who sculpt a beautiful, creative game. That isn't changing. Our internal guidelines remain the same with regards to artificial intelligence tools: We require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the D&D TTRPG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final D&D products. We work with some of the most talented artists and creatives in the world, and we believe those people are what makes D&D great.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

A while back I wanted to borrow the idea of head crabs from the Half-Life games. If you don't know what they are, they're basically small alien parasite that effectively eats people's brains and turns them into zombies. Except my head crabs were created by a follower of Lollth so I wanted actual spiders replacing the heads of the zombies. A few prompts to an AI image generator and I had some images I could show the players. It added to my game but it is also something I never would have paid anyone for. I see AI as something that can help me be a better DM but I will never want it to completely replace me.

The good side is that it won't replace you because, irrespective of the performance of AI, it will never prevent you from prepping your own campaign, much like the automation of the tailoring industry didn't prevent people having a blast knitting. So everyone gets the best of it: people struggling to find a pastime could have an AI DM while people who enjoy prepping can still do that. I fail to think of a task where technology entirely replaced manmade activity.

I have to ask the question: if ChatGPT gets good at creating D&D content... why would I need to buy anything from Wizards? Is Hasbro's AI ever going to be better than the biggest AI company in the world? I'm betting not.

Hasbro's AI will ALWAYS be inferior to what I can get for free or almost free.

There is a possibility they could embed the AI in a gameplay system that more general AI system would lack. Even if the engine is subpar (or just obtained from the state-of-the-art provider), they could make it easier to use and create value from that. Or they could devise adventure and train a general AI model on it to behave as an AI DM based on their new content. If they just want to use a generic AI, then I agree that they probably don't have the means to compete.

At one point I was running or helping to run two different game days in a major metro area. Over the course of a few months I played with at least 30 people because I both DMed and played.

I have no idea what his situation is, if he's exaggerating, if he's just making up a number. But it is possible because it would have been true for me at one point. Even if it is not probable.

WRT Chris Cocks gaming with 30 people, he might also be in a company that is supportive of playing D&D or even organizes D&D games. He might be truthfully occasionally play with 30 people called "employees assigned to the playtesting" team. He never claimed to play with 30 random people or 30 people representative of the average gaming group. It might also explain why the prevalence of the use of AI among his group is different compared to the feeling over here, maybe they simply all used AI to create a character picture instead of drawing a stick figure?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

AI can be faster but not more original. It could be useful to create the streets and shops of a city. Or it could help me with the game stats because I am using a VTT for a skimishes wargame controlling lots of virtual miniatures.

We need some limits or boundaries about mature content. You can't play a campaign style Dark Sun or Ravenloft is the players are 13y or +18y. Some player with a very dirty mind could want a womanizer witcher-style PC who wants to be a "friend with rights" of kenders. (I am trying to say it softly).

An AI couldn't understand possible double sense. For example if I say "I imagine in this story a ring very soon" the AI doesn't understand I mean a couple of lovers are about to get engaged.

AI can't create pictures with a Dark Sun style without a lot of previous human work.

With AI you can't playtest your homebred ideas, for example a new class, PC specie or spell. And what if I wanted to use content by 3PPs?

If Hasbro could create the right software, other company could do it better. Here seriously Elon Musk could offer something.

What if anybody wants to create pictures imitating Elmore's style or by other fantasy artists from 80s and 90s because she loves that vintage style?

Even if AI could do great things, these would be better thanks human help.

AI art isn't very good to create pictures with more two characters interacting with each other, for example an epic fight.

 

[Oofta]

...

On the other hand, he is clearly spewing nonsense about how he runs his personal games to hype up the technology and maybe get investors interested. Nobody is expressing skepticism there's a corporate motive to use it, we're pointing out that Cocks' claims make no sense and whatever he claims to be doing with the tech is exaggerated for self-serving reasons.

If this is about his claims to how he uses technology, it's not even possible he is using Chat GPT to help fill in ideas for his campaign or some tool to create art? There are no tools in existence that will "talk" for you if you give them lines? Even if money is not an obstacle?

What exactly is the accusation? Because I see no justification for it. It's not an issue of me liking the guy, knowing what he really does, defending his decisions when it comes to the direction he's taking the game. But you have absolutely no clue if he's telling the truth, exaggerating, or just flat out lying. I'm playing a game right now where the DM fed all of his story notes and background into ChatGPT and generated a world book. Others have shown examples of ideas generated by AI. I've AI generate art myself a time or two. Years ago back toyed around with a text to speech tool, at the time it wasn't worth it but the technology has grown exponentially since then.

If it's the 30 people claim, I've played with that many people on what I would consider a regular basis in the past. I'm not doing public games any more but I still play with 16 different people (usually) monthly*. In a company dedicated to the game he could easily be a "floater" jumping from game to game to get a different perspective on how to play the game. We just don't know.

Call it a pet peeve if you want but if I accuse someone of lying it has at least some foundation, some proof, some realistic reason to believe that they are lying. Even if I don't personally like the person.

*I run 2 games, one with friends, another with family. I play in another game. It's not higher because there are some overlaps, like my wife. At one point it was close to 20 with just private games.

 

[Scott Christian]

For me? I would like an AI assistant at times to either do stuff I don't want to do or cannot. I've used AI art a few times for miscellaneous things I would never pay an artist for. I occasionally want help with inspiration or filling out my campaign ideas. For those things I don't really see AI being any different from any other tool or resource I've used throughout the decades. But I also have to admit that as much as I like to think I'm creative, there really is nothing new under the sun. If I'm being generous there are maybe a dozen story arcs we can use for D&D and the best we can do is add a bit of different flavor to each of them.

I would say this Oofta, that is exactly a concern, and it hits at the core of "the problem" (if there is one). Having AI embellish or help fill out a storyline replaces me meeting my friend at a pub and discussing how to fill out the adventure. It replaces me thinking about how to fit that puzzle piece in before I go to bed. In a sense, it replaces the tertiary effects of a DM used to use to have fun - and possible social interaction.
I am with you. It is a tool. But some tools have negative side effects that outweigh their benefits.

 

[Oofta]

I would say this Oofta, that is exactly a concern, and it hits at the core of "the problem" (if there is one). Having AI embellish or help fill out a storyline replaces me meeting my friend at a pub and discussing how to fill out the adventure. It replaces me thinking about how to fit that puzzle piece in before I go to bed. In a sense, it replaces the tertiary effects of a DM used to use to have fun - and possible social interaction.
I am with you. It is a tool. But some tools have negative side effects that outweigh their benefits.

I see it as a tool, not anything that replaces interactions. I don't see it replacing any puzzle pieces because it will still always be my story. On the other hand if it can help me fill in details about Orlack the city guard that is probably not going to be important? That could be helpful. It could even suggest that he is overly fond of cheese which could prompt my own thought process and Orlack the throw-away side NPC now becomes a living person that makes my campaign world richer.

If I ever found it taking away, I wouldn't use it. But if I can say "Give me a small city in style X situated in region Y" and it gives me a map and populates it with style and lore appropriate to the region? That could be amazing. Just like it's amazing that I have a machine I toss my dirty dishes into and they come out clean.

 

[Cergorach]

AI can be faster but not more original.

More original then whom? Which human? D&D is pillaged from fiction without much work put into it, at least Tolkien pillaged, but put a lot of work into it. And compared to which human? A good DM? A good writer? How good?

If we were to grade the D&D novels, not many would rise above dime store romance novels in quality (we enjoy some of them though). If we look at RPG supplements, which is often horribly constrained by a plethora of artificial conditions like page count and wide consumption. Then I'm of the opinion that DeepSeek r1 671b can write better parts of an adventure IF prompted properly then the average D&D writer. It can do the same for most DMs. There are exceptions, of course, but many that think they are the exception, aren't.

Original isn't 'new' or 'unique', just existing things in a different way. Quite often people think something is new or unique because they don't know any better, it is new or unique to them.

Having AI embellish or help fill out a storyline replaces me meeting my friend at a pub and discussing how to fill out the adventure. It replaces me thinking about how to fit that puzzle piece in before I go to bed.

Then you don't use it. Some people don't enjoy that or can't enjoy that, so why not allow them the option? Why is it always the "That does not benefit me, so it shouldn't exist!" attitude?

 

[Scott Christian]

Then you don't use it. Some people don't enjoy that or can't enjoy that, so why not allow them the option? Why is it always the "That does not benefit me, so it shouldn't exist!" attitude?

I agree, but as we all know through our interaction with daily things - that is not likely to happen. Telling a young person who complains about not having time to practice their guitar or write songs to "not use their phone as much" doesn't necessarily work. Telling an artist (who loves drawing) to simply, "not use AI" doesn't really seem to work. Many artists, who do not even like the thought of it, still use it. Telling a teacher who loves to create lessons to simply, "not use it" doesn't work like it should.
And to be clear, I never said it shouldn't exist. I even labelled it a tool - like any other tool. I just said, like many tools, sometimes their perceived benefits hide or diminish the negative side effects.
But just telling people who worry about the negative effects to "not use it" is myopic. It discounts all the other outside forces that make their way into a creative's decision making.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For those who are curious, here is a summary of active copyright lawsuits against OpenAI. Ironically, I generated this using OpenAIs Deep research (which I currently have access to).

My work is included in one of these lawsuits. The idea that Open AI hasn't been scraping WotC IP for years is ridiculous on the face of it -- they've been slurping up everyone's content, with and without consent, from the beginning, by design.

So, again, the value add of the WotC AI will be that WotC gets paid a subscription fee for the output. And that's probably it.

 

[Scribe]

The idea that Open AI hasn't been scraping WotC IP for years is ridiculous on the face of it -- they've been slurping up everyone's content, with and without consent, from the beginning, by design.

I must again point out for folks who maybe didnt see it, that a prompt on this site was able to get word for word 5.0 PHB (I believe it was) material.

Its obviously all been ripped at this point.

 

[Hex08]

My work is included in one of these lawsuits. The idea that Open AI hasn't been scraping......

Here's what baffles me. These AI companies can scape (pirate, steal) the internet for copyrighted material and use it publicly and its ok, at least so far, but if some individual pirates or steals content from the internet they could be looking at devastating fines. Other than the difference in financial resources between these companies and most individuals what's the difference? Is this a case of might, or money, making right? If stealing works on the internet isn't ok for an individual then AI companies should bee held to the same standards (including devastating fines when caught).