Firstly, a thank you for the feedback here. It's clear to me that I've been living in somewhat of a bubble regarding this. I was already well aware of the threat of AI in general terms and have close friends in my local table top gaming group who write code that are fearing for their careers right now.
If I had known that the D&D online world was particularly anti-AI (it seems more so than other groups) perhaps I would have taken a different route a couple of years back. Perhaps I would not have used midjourney for my adventure.
There's a comment in this thread above about using stock images or free content. I'll just get this one out of the early. No chance, sorry. There absolutely no way they will be good enough or even useful. I'd rather go text only.
I've also looked at other posts on this same forum and found one from someone claiming to be a publishing company who has released over 70 books this year. This person is openly using AI. This person also got slated on your forum and didn't make a good impression in their response either.
I hope I can do better and show that I have listened, and that my response comes from the point that this is not a black and white issue. I have produced one story. It's taken me since 2019. I have played it through twice. One of my kids has GM'd it with college friends and it about to run it again. We talk about the story and how it runs every time we see each other. (Proud geek dad here!)
I've got countless drafts of the story on GMbinder and my G-drive. All full of errors, typo's, stuff that didn't work. Complete sections that were binned from the adventure.
I've also got some really good stories from the table of my amazing players who keep managing to scrape their way out of sessions where I actually think they are going to get their rear ends kicked. I'm rambling....
I am a recently retired care worker, not a publishing company. With one product. And it has some a amazing beautiful AI art in it that actually helps to tell the story. It adds a lot to the book in more ways than the visual impact. I have no money to pay a real artist. None. My disposable income every month is nil. Paying the £200 for the first year for the Crawport website was a big one for me.
I cannot see how I have directly taken work from an illustrator or artist. The book would simply have been text only without AI and therefore the same revenue to an artist: Nil.
I've taken a couple of days to think about my response and I'm still not sure where to go with this. The book, with the AI art looks awesome. I spent countless hours learning CSS and nuances of GMBinder to make the layout work the way I wanted. it's full of custom script that I'm really pleased with. To remove the art and reformat the book would probably take me a couple of hundred hours, and getting it out into the world was such a massive challenge for me, that I'm not prepared to just bin it
So, for now, the AI art shall stay. Maybe in the autumn I will produce a no-AI version. For those that choose not to look at my work because of the midjourney images, that's fine. But please understand for me there's a huge difference between someone producing 70+ books in a few months and someone producing 1 book in 7 years (and desperately looking for some informed D&D geek feedback).
Well, there ya go. My head is now no longer in a bubble! I've learned so much in the last few days and not much of it has been positive. I'm still looking for feedback (and, yes, self-promotion) and simply getting people to look at a 230+ page story that's FREE isn't proving easy.
If I had known that the D&D online world was particularly anti-AI (it seems more so than other groups) perhaps I would have taken a different route a couple of years back. Perhaps I would not have used midjourney for my adventure.
There's a comment in this thread above about using stock images or free content. I'll just get this one out of the early. No chance, sorry. There absolutely no way they will be good enough or even useful. I'd rather go text only.
I've also looked at other posts on this same forum and found one from someone claiming to be a publishing company who has released over 70 books this year. This person is openly using AI. This person also got slated on your forum and didn't make a good impression in their response either.
I hope I can do better and show that I have listened, and that my response comes from the point that this is not a black and white issue. I have produced one story. It's taken me since 2019. I have played it through twice. One of my kids has GM'd it with college friends and it about to run it again. We talk about the story and how it runs every time we see each other. (Proud geek dad here!)
I've got countless drafts of the story on GMbinder and my G-drive. All full of errors, typo's, stuff that didn't work. Complete sections that were binned from the adventure.
I've also got some really good stories from the table of my amazing players who keep managing to scrape their way out of sessions where I actually think they are going to get their rear ends kicked. I'm rambling....
I am a recently retired care worker, not a publishing company. With one product. And it has some a amazing beautiful AI art in it that actually helps to tell the story. It adds a lot to the book in more ways than the visual impact. I have no money to pay a real artist. None. My disposable income every month is nil. Paying the £200 for the first year for the Crawport website was a big one for me.
I cannot see how I have directly taken work from an illustrator or artist. The book would simply have been text only without AI and therefore the same revenue to an artist: Nil.
I've taken a couple of days to think about my response and I'm still not sure where to go with this. The book, with the AI art looks awesome. I spent countless hours learning CSS and nuances of GMBinder to make the layout work the way I wanted. it's full of custom script that I'm really pleased with. To remove the art and reformat the book would probably take me a couple of hundred hours, and getting it out into the world was such a massive challenge for me, that I'm not prepared to just bin it
So, for now, the AI art shall stay. Maybe in the autumn I will produce a no-AI version. For those that choose not to look at my work because of the midjourney images, that's fine. But please understand for me there's a huge difference between someone producing 70+ books in a few months and someone producing 1 book in 7 years (and desperately looking for some informed D&D geek feedback).
Well, there ya go. My head is now no longer in a bubble! I've learned so much in the last few days and not much of it has been positive. I'm still looking for feedback (and, yes, self-promotion) and simply getting people to look at a 230+ page story that's FREE isn't proving easy.
