D&D General Interview with Chris Cocks on D&D AI, the OGL, and more

[Morrus]

My respect for Dan Dillon which was previously at "normal" levels based on his previous work is now at absolute zero.

Huh? Why?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Oh... wow.

I'm in 3 different TTRPG groups (one is D&D group, one is my regular group who is curenntly playing A5E, one is a revolving TTRPG group at a game club with members who come and go) and to my knowledge not one has used AI.

This points to a fundamentally different experience. And, naturally, Cocks will make descisions based on his experience, not mine.

Yeah similar here. I'm in 3 RPG groups right now (albeit with some crossover), and precisely one (1) player has used AI to try and illustrate his character. Nobody was mean to him about it (not even me!) but also no-one was very excited by it, and he hasn't brought it out again.

You lie down with tech bros, you wake up with NFTs.

I love this.

Huh? Why?

Oh I misread - I'll edit! That makes a lot more sense!

 

[Scribe]

It looks like the approach is to avoid AI for official content, but welcome AI for user-generated content.

If you open up, and of course charge for, a service which allows users to generate their own art assets, why would you as a company bother paying for professional assets?

I already greatly prefer the images I can have generated over what Wizards is commissioning as of 5.5.

 

[Morrus]

The AI comment which you attributed to Cocks but was made by Dillon, combined with the revisionism. Those are both Dillon comments.

Oh... no, no no. You'll read that wrong. That was all Cocks. Mike was just commenting that Dillon wasn't a back end worker, he was a designer.

 

[Quickleaf]

Saudi Public Investment Fund? That's a trip... Not to go all the way down the majority shareholder rabbit hole, but having BlackRock own 7 million shares of your company (Hasbro) is bad news. At least in my humble view.

I know this stuff is rampant and also circular (e.g. Bank of America invests in BlackRock, Vanguard - also one of Hasbro's investors - invests in BlackRock, etc) and "corporations and mutual funds aren't evil/good, they're amoral, blahblah", but my take is that BlackRock is in the top five corporations detrimental to the future of humanity.

 

[Reynard]

On AI:

It looks like the approach is to avoid AI for official content, but welcome AI for player-generated content.

Hypothetically, this might be ok.

I think it points to AI tools embedded in Beyond and the VTT.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Oh... no, no no. You'll read that wrong. That was all Cocks. Mike was just commenting that Dillon wasn't a back end worker, he was a designer.

Yes I corrected - it's real late and my ritalin had full worn off, witness the full power of unmedicated inattentive ADHD!

 

[M.T. Black]

I think it points to AI tools embedded in Beyond and the VTT.

That is my guess as well. Generate a random profile pic for your character. Generate a simple backstory. That sort of thing.

I think WOTC would be making a grave error to include AI-generated content in their hardback books - that would really devalue them in the eyes of many. Like with craft beer, consumers will put a premium on things being made by hand.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Corp mouthpiece gonna Corp mouthpiece

Edit: I mean im sure WotC has our best interests at heart and only wants D&D to succeed for years to come. Any errors in judgement are merely temporary.

 

[Morrus]

That is my guess as well. Generate a random profile pic for your character. Generate a simple backstory. That sort of thing.

Does that need AI? I can do that with random generators now.

I think WOTC would be making a grave error to include AI-generated content in their hardback books - that would really devalue them in the eyes of many.

Absolutely. The moment they say 'the tools you have access to are as good as the content in our books' they remove the reason to buy their books. They (and I mean we, as creators) need to make content better than AI can do.