Any AI Gamemasters Out There?

[Starfox]

Associated with the thread on use of AI in RPGs, that thread is mainly about a gamemaster using AI as a resource. But another thing that might appear in the future and might already be here, anyone has actual experience with AI as a gamemaster? I've seen people mention it as a writing prompt, telling the large language model AI that it is now to respond as a gamemaster, some info on the setting, and then simply chatting along. I didn't see any report on how this actually worked out.

Anyone has more information, anecdotes, experiments, or ideas for experiments?

 

[Theory of Games]

I've played with AI GMs for decades: they're called video games. And they get more and more advanced every year or so. Baldur's Gate 3 is vastly superior to the old Pool of Radiance.

There are ai-based ttrpg systems out there and the systems get keep getting better.

Exists

 

[Gorgon Zee]

Current AIs are not good enough to do this in general. They could do a lot of the flavor text part of GMing, but since they have no concept of facts or truthfulness, they do a poor job at running even somewhat complex rules. You would need to add a rules-engine agent to make it all reasonable.

But even then, there is a more fundamental issue. AIs can be more creative than individuals, but they are more creative in the same way -- if you compare a single story an AI generates to a spec to that a person does, the AI can be trained to be more creative than the person. But even in that case, if you look at the combined outputs of 20 of each, the AI generated ones are much more similar to each other.

So, even if you managed to make an AI run a game well, after a while, they'll begin to feel very same-y. Sort of like procedurally-generated quests in CRPG. Nice, but not as good as an actual GM

 

[Morrus]

For me, a TTRPG is a social activity. No matter how good an AI GM is, if I want a solo PC experience, I'm gonna go to a video game. I play TTRPGs to have fun with other people.

But then maybe I'm different. In a lot of those threads where people won't play a system for some reason, I'm kinda like the system is so far down the list of reasons I play a TTRPG it's almost nonexistent. If I like the people, we'll have a good time playing D&D, Monopoly, Munchkin, Chirades, or snooker. Just like we'll have a good time bowling, or watching a movie, or having a picnic, or going out for dinner.

The system just doesn't really matter to me. The people do.

And an AI ain't people.

 

[Joshua Randall]

My friend sent me the following from ChatGPT. Note the extremely long initial prompt.

ChatGPT - Orinth's Adventure

Shared by Jeff Borger via ChatGPT

chatgpt.com

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Associated with the thread on use of AI in RPGs, that thread is mainly about a gamemaster using AI as a resource. But another thing that might appear in the future and might already be here, anyone has actual experience with AI as a gamemaster?

I think the best you can currently get is a gamebook-style adventure generator, by providing an LLM with a very long explanation of what LLM is and the outline of the adventure you want it to tell. You might it generate images sometimes to accompany the action. It might lack context (ability to remember what has happened) for longer stories but that's quickly evolving.

I am not aware of an interface allowing several humans to chat between themselves and then input what's happening to the LLM. I am pretty sure it wouldn't work in real life when you've a group of players and just nobody wants to be the GM because prep time was available for noone this week (usually, when it happens in my groups, we just play boardgames or try a new restaurant, but I am playing with friends I want to hang out with anyway). The limit would be the ability for the AI to follow all the discussions between players to get input to integrate into the game, which is one of the fun parts of gamemastering, noticing that the players got a better idea than the one you imagined and rolling with it.

It might work better with online game, but I think the weak point would still be this one (even if voice2text technology was good enough to follow the usual chitchat of a game). You the end result would be, right now, to be closer to a shared reading of a gamebook and discussing what to do at the end of each paragraph. Not really a full RPG experience.

I feel what you need is still further down the line, and maybe the first application will be inside video games, with sidequests being AI-generated as the game goes (so they don't derail the main story line).

 

[Joshua Randall]

There are tons of games with procedurally generated side quests already. Not sure if that counts as A.I.

It was a big selling point for Elder Scrolls Skyrim back when that came out.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

My friend sent me the following from ChatGPT. Note the extremely long initial prompt.

ChatGPT - Orinth's Adventure

Shared by Jeff Borger via ChatGPT

chatgpt.com

The AI GM is more efficient than many human GM. When I continued the story by teleporting to a star destroyer orbiting planet Zenobius, he told me frankly that it was so outside the conceit of the game that I wasn't fitting in. I may have been the first human to be booted out of the table by an AI GM ;-)

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

There are tons of games with procedurally generated side quests already. Not sure if that counts as A.I.

It was a big selling point for Elder Scrolls Skyrim back when that came out.

There are, and that's why I think the next step is to use AI, because it's a logical refinement over something that is already existing and appreciated by gamers.

 

[Joshua Randall]

The AI GM is more efficient than many human GM. When I continued the story by teleporting to a star destroyer orbiting planet Zenobius, he told me frankly that it was so outside the conceit of the game that I wasn't fitting in. I may have been the first human to be booted out of the table by an AI GM ;-)

I mean… if you told me, a human GM that, I would probably say “bruh, no, don’t be a weirdo” and then if you persisted in being a weirdo, kick you out.