AI/LLMs Crawport Chronicles 5e adventure

[Crawport]

Hi everyone,
I'm looking for honest feedback on my free 230 page D&D 5e campaign.

I'm an old git who first played AD&D in 1981, wrote this adventure originally for my own family and friends, and have spent the last seven years and several thousand hours turning it into something I hope others can use and enjoy. I've been writing largely in a vacuum and I'm genuinely not up to date with the wider D&D world — which is why I'm here.

The Crawport Chronicles is a complete 5e campaign covering levels 1–8 across two episodes — Cutthroats in Crawport and The Hall in the Mountain. Around 23 sessions of play. The first 230 pages covering the complete main story are completely free at crawportchronicle.com I have a paid version for sale that includes a huge appendix for the story and some aspects of the third episode which I'm playing and writing right now.

I'm genuinely looking for feedback at every level. If a stat block has a minor error, I want to know. If the world lore feels too dense or loaded, I want to know that too. Everything in between is welcome. I wrote this with care but I need outside eyes.

A note on AI and tools used:

I want to be transparent about this because I know it matters to people. The writing, worldbuilding, game design, and creative work is entirely human — thousands of hours of it. Also, a huge thanks to the players here. Much of the writing came directly from their experience of playing. Most of the maps were hand-crafted in Dungeon Painter Studio. The regional maps were created in Inkarnate Pro. Crawport itself was built in Townscaper. The layout was constructed in GMBinder.
Some of the scenery images, illustrations, and battlemaps were created using Midjourney and GIMP. I want to be clear that this was due to budget constraints only. If I'd had the funds to commission human illustrators I would have done so without hesitation. The writing of this book began in 2019 and was completed in 2026 after several playthroughs and extensive editing.

If you download it and have any thoughts at all — kind or critical — please do share them here or contact me through the site. It would mean a great deal.

As a final question for now: I'm totally with it on the AI issue, but out-of-touch with general opinion on this. I'd be happy to release a no-AI version of this, which would basically mean nearly all of the scenic images gone and the book being a lot less pages! What would people think of this? I really just want to get it out there for people to have fun. Big thanks for any feedback! Here's the link The Crawport Chronicles (use the download button on the main page for a direct link to my G-drive for the free book)

Jay

 

[Morrus]

Speaking for myself, I would not only prefer it to be AI-free, I would only be interested in it at all if it was AI-free. But not if it’s released along with an AI version. I’d personally want you to not use AI.

 

[Marc Radle]

Agreed 100%

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

AI? Bye bye.

 

[Crawport]

Speaking for myself, I would not only prefer it to be AI-free, I would only be interested in it at all if it was AI-free. But not if it’s released along with an AI version. I’d personally want you to not use AI.

Hi Morrus, thanks for your reply. I've been writing this adventure in a bubble, not having any contact with the online community and genuinely being unaware of the strength of feeling about this. So, appreciate the response.
As mentioned previously, I've used midjourney for the images, and with absolutely no money to pay an artist, the adventure would be illustration free. I think it will take me a couple of weeks to edit and make it a text and map (dungeon painter studio/ inkarnate) only adventure. However, I cannot undo the fact that I used midjourney beforehand. How do you think this would sit with you or others that have a very legitimate concern with AI?

 

[Morrus]

Hi Morrus, thanks for your reply. I've been writing this adventure in a bubble, not having any contact with the online community and genuinely being unaware of the strength of feeling about this. So, appreciate the response.
As mentioned previously, I've used midjourney for the images, and with absolutely no money to pay an artist, the adventure would be illustration free. I think it will take me a couple of weeks to edit and make it a text and map (dungeon painter studio/ inkarnate) only adventure. However, I cannot undo the fact that I used midjourney beforehand. How do you think this would sit with you or others that have a very legitimate concern with AI?

I can't speak for others, but until it is AI-free, it's just something I would stay away from. I know not being able to afford stuff sucks; there are many things I can't afford, too.

 

[Gradine]

I agree. There are alternatives of course; stock images, Creative Commons without the NC tag, but for me personally I would prefer no images altogether over having AI images, and I can thankfully point to evidence that I far from alone on that.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Since you evidently thought images improved your work I would personally prefer the AI images be included over none. I would also prefer "exactly what you want" AI images over "sort of ballpark" public domain, stock, etc. images. I generally prefer seeing works as close to the author's vision as possible (if the author's vision is worthwhile).

But clearly the consensus of the loud is very much not with me on this one for the moment, and I would prefer you have a well-received launch for your product rather than be outcast over people being hardline anti-AI when it's a secondary or tertiary aspect of the work.

 

[Crawport]

AI? Bye bye.

 

[Gradine]

Plenty of excellent third-party RPG books out there with no/limited artwork, and as iconic as the art of many of the foundational texts of our hobby is, it wouldn't be winning any awards any time soon. The difference is they picked up a pencil and did what they could. They created something, and it was something that conformed to their vision, even if only to the best of their own ability.

Why should I waste my own valuable time/energy/money flipping through these images when you couldn't have been bothered to spend your own making them?

If the cover imagery is any indication of what quality there is to be found on the inside, then I have even less hope about what's to be found within.

If the care put into the quality of the writing were worthwhile enough I would happily pay for a text-only version. The unhappy truth is that it is difficult to place faith in the amount of heart and soul poured into one aspect of the work when another aspect of it clearly lacks either.

Especially since this seems like you are not fully sold on this being a final version of this product, you have plenty of opportunity to sell a version bereft of poorly-machine-constructed imagery, with no or placeholder art, and then use the revenue of the soft launch to fund actual human artwork for the final. Or crowdfund. Or put in the work to find an artist as hungry to have their work published as you are and willing to sign up for revenue sharing. Or any of a dozen different options beyond the cheapest and laziest.

LLMs may or may not be going away anytime soon (although the surface tension on that particular bubble is looking stressed), but neither is the opposition to them. There is zero reason to cut yourself off entirely from a substantial piece of the RPG community just so you can add some imagery that ultimately isn't going to look all that great anyway.