Ken Whitman creates bizarre AI-powered biographies of TTRPG designers

Ken Whitman is behind the site, and has his own Ai-created biography​

Ken Whitman, a man whose reputation in the gaming industry is controversial at best, is behind a new website called '4 Pillar Games'. The website purports to be a record of influential game designers and companies, and is obviously (and poorly) written by AI with strange, formulaic articles and AI generated portraits of the designers in question. Whitman’s project has caused a strong backlash from those included without their consent or knowledge.

As well as an AI-created directory of game designers, the website also features an RSS-powered news section and a--currently empty--storefront which invites game publishers to apply for inclusion. (Update: The storefront tab appears to have vanished sometime in the last few hours.)

The entries are unintentionally laughable. Also, this is not a picture of Jason Bulmahn. ​

While Whitman's name is not mentioned on the site (other than in his own biography), his name is in the metadata, indicating his 'authorship' (a strong term when referring to RSS feeds and AI generated content). Three others were publicly named on the site in a now-removed 'About' page: Don Perrin (Traveller, Sovereign Stone, Dragonlance), Tony Lee (Games Unplugged) and Reece Wardrip (Spycraft, Twlight:2013). It's not clear why Ken Whitman's own involvement is not mentioned anywhere on the site, although many have speculated that his reputation is such that he is no longer able to be the public face of projects--as Cam Banks (Cortex System, Dragonlance) said on BlueSky, "Ken “Whit” Whitman, notorious in tabletop gaming for various get rich schemes and scams, is back trying to promote a Best Tabletop Designers of All Time Facebook page where he ranks creators using generative AI slop entries and art." The Facebook page itself has since been deleted, but the 4 Pillar Games website is still active and designers are still being added.

This page has now been removed from the site​

Both Perrin and Lee have now reportedly left the project, stating that the site was made without their approval.

The bios are all written by AI, and all follow a similar format: An AI-generated image of the person in question, many of which are laughably bad, and a one-page summary. Many game designers have publicly stated that they did not consent to their inclusion in this 'directory', although some have found amusement by mocking the AI-created images of themselves. Evil Hat's Fred Hicks commented on his own entry:

• Haven't looked this young in 20 years.
• Gave no legal permission to use my likeness in this image.
• Gave no legal permission to use trademarked logos placed on incorrect product images & layouts shown here.
• Them Fate Dice are jank, yo.
• Contemplating legal action.
• Enjoy, mother****er.

Many other game designers have expressed similar sentiments. Chris Bisset (The Wretched, Tunnels & Trolls) was more confrontational, saying "Hey uhhhhh if you make AI slop images of me and I meet you in person I'm going to hit you full force in the throat, just as a little PSA", while award-winning designer Grant Howitt (Honey Heist, Heart: The City Beneath) asked "There's so many pictures of me online. Why not use one of those instead of asking a computer to gin one up with a couple dozen extra wrinkles". Cam Banks said "I sent this Reece Wardrip guy a message on LinkedIn to take down the AI slop photo of me and that AI-written bio. What a colossally lazy and insulting thing to do to people." Philip Reed (former CEO of Steve Jackson Games) said "I was sent a link to a new site that appears to be an AI-generated nightmare. It claims to be about the 'most influential tabletop game designers.' Two things: 1. I do not belong on any list of "influential" anything. 2. W(ho)TF is that? This is creepy and disturbing."

Tabletop gaming historian Shannon Appelcline had more to say: "I knew we had a problem with Ken "Whit" Whitman started publishing LLM-authored designer biographies. I read over one. It had lots of correct facts. The article's subject even said it was great. But it also had a few factual errors and some sentences that implied things that were false. It was pretty obvious to me that that was going to be sucked into Wikipedia or into someone's article that was going to get sucked into Wikipedia and those misstaments and misimplications were going to get taken as fact. I confronted Ken, who I'd had some pleasant interactions with a few years ago when I wrote LOST HISTORIES of a few of his failed companies, and he told me that he had a magical means that got rid of 97% of hallucinations.To which I say, bull****.... Nonetheless, Whitman's crap is definitely going to be making it a lot harder to separate the wheat of RPG histories from the chaff in a few years. Still, it's manageable, because you just have to go back to trustworthy primary sources, as you should be doing anyway."

Some designers have asked to be removed, but have received a stock response from Whitman, such as the one below sent to Spencer Campbell of Gila RPGs. Others who have questioned or criticised 4 Pillar on social media have been unceremoniously blocked.

The designer summaries all read in a similar way, and one cringeworthy aspect is that when you look at the menu of designers, which includes the first line of each summary, it looks a really weak diss track listing things that game designers did not do--we are usefully informed that "Jason Bulmahn did not invent d20 fantasy roleplaying" and that "Peter Adkison did not design Magic: The Gathering." Here's an informative list of other things those mentioned did not do:

• "Aaron Allston's best ideas do not look like inventions anymore."
• "Peter Adkison did not design Magic: The Gathering."
• "Scott Almes did not make small games because small was cute."
• "Cam Banks did not ask one universal question with Cortex."
• "Jason Bulmahn did not invent d20 fantasy roleplaying."
• "John Blanche did not make fantasy darker by turning down the lights."
• "Kris Burm did not make one abstract game and move on."
• "Jolly Blackburn didn't set out to define tabletop gaming culture."
• "Milton Bradley did not set out to become the father of American board gaming."
• "Rich Baker did not make Dungeons & Dragons by inventing from empty air."
• "Richard Berg did not treat history like scenery."
• "Sydney Beckman does not teach Evidence like a museum of rules."
• "Tim Beach was not the loudest name in the TSR building."
• "Tim Bradstreet did not make Vampire: The Masquerade by writing clans, disciplines, dice pools, or city politics."
• "Wolfgang Baur did not build Dungeons & Dragons."
• "Bill Bridges did not build his reputation by making neutral rules."
• "Clyde Caldwell did not make Dungeons & Dragons darker by writing a rule."
• "Isaac Childres did not make the dungeon crawl friendlier."
• "Graeme Davis did not make fantasy darker by adding more monsters."
• "Ryan Dancey's biggest contribution to tabletop games was not a monster, a setting, a rulebook class, or a clever combat mechanic."
• "Jay Dragon does not treat rules like invisible plumbing."
• "Jeff Easley did not make his deepest mark on tabletop gaming by writing rules."
• "Ron Edwards did not ask whether a role-playing game could tell a good story."
• "Larry Elmore did not make his deepest mark on tabletop gaming by writing a combat table."
• "Amanda Lee Franck does not treat the map as a handout."
• "Fred Fields did not shape tabletop gaming by writing a rule."
• "Mike Fitzgerald did not need to invent a new card game to make people lean forward."
• "Sean Patrick Fannon did not build the engine."
• "Ed Greenwood did not start the Forgotten Realms as a product line."
• "Joseph Goodman did not ask what old Dungeons & Dragons looked like."
• "Goro Hasegawa did not invent the idea of flipping discs on a board from nothing."
• "John Harper did not invent fiction-first roleplaying."
• "John Eric Holmes did not invent Dungeons & Dragons."
• "If the d20 system is a cathedral, Amanda Hamon is not the person who poured the foundation."
• "Christopher Jeansonne does not treat media history like a timeline."
• "Jeremy Jarvis did not become important to tabletop fantasy because he painted one famous picture."
• "John Kovalic did not make games look serious."
• "Seiji Kanai did not prove that small games could exist."
• [Billy Littlepage is] not attached to famous boxed games."
• "Lenard Lakofka did not just draw a dungeon and wait for adventurers to kick in the door."
• "Steven S. Long did not invent the HERO System."
• "A Todd Lockwood dragon does not look like a symbol."
• "Tom Lehmann did not become Tom Lehmann when Race for the Galaxy appeared."
• "Angus McBride did not paint fantasy as escape from history."
• "Marc Miller did not give science-fiction role-playing a plot."
• "Kim Mohan did not become important to Dungeons & Dragons by standing in the spotlight."
• "Roger E. Moore did not just write for Dungeons & Dragons."
• "Tom Moldvay did not invent Dungeons & Dragons."
• "Gavin Norman did not become important by inventing a new fantasy engine."
• "Scott Palter did not create Star Wars."
• "Charles S. Roberts did not set out to create a hobby."
• "Volko Ruhnke did not approach conflict like a duel."
• "Carl Sargent did not make dark fantasy by turning down the lights."
• "Jack Scruby did not become famous because one rules system conquered the hobby."
• "R. A. Salvatore did not begin by redesigning Dungeons & Dragons."
• "Ethan Skemp did not create the World of Darkness."
• "Steve Stone did not make his deepest tabletop mark by building a dice engine."
• "Robert J. Schwalb did not build his reputation by making fantasy darker."
• "Francis Tresham did not flood the hobby with designs."
• "Jason Tocci did not make a tiny RPG because he had nothing to say."
• "Donald X. Vaccarino did not begin with a small idea."
• "Michael Van Vleet does not usually build the engine."
• "White Wolf did not begin as the company that made vampires cool."
• "Dave Wesely did not sit down to invent roleplaying games."
• "Jean Wells did not leave behind a long shelf of modules with her name on the spine."
• "Ken "Whit" Whitman did not build his tabletop career like a man protecting one perfect system."

Not sure how we feel about Whitman's latest diss-track​

The PDF gaming store tab is now gone, removed at some point in the last 24 hours. While the (AI) image below purports to show a store teeming with product, as of yesterday the store page was still completely empty, with a button on it exhorting publishers to apply to be included in the store. It looked like the store page was an attempt at something similar to DriveThruRPG. It is not clear why the store page disappeared overnight.

​

With the blacklash online being intense, designers demanding their entries be removed, two-thirds of the project's creators resigning, the Facebook page for 4 Pillar Games being taken down, various pages on the website disappearing overnight, and Whitman's continuing silence, it's not clear how long this project will last.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

New sorcerer type. They don’t understand the magic just slop words of power together in not quite right ways.

So, all sorcerers, then?

/wizard off

 

[Autumnal]

This was an interesting email I got

This is the second time in less than a week I’ve seen someone make the comment that mentioning X in endorsing and promoting. (The other case involves an upcoming fantasy novel by R.F. Kuang, who’s alleged to, by having an apparently sympathetic or neutral portrayal of an individual from Country Doing Genocidal Things, promoting the genocidal things that country is doing. I am absolutely not going into more details; there are enough keywords there for someone who really wants to know more to search it out.).

I don’t know if this is a new hotness or just one I’ve missed until now. But apparently people have decided to forget anything they ever knew about nominative usage, or never did know about it. It feels more like ritual magic to me than a serious engagement with how communication works.

There are situations where nominative usage can interact badly with trauma legacies. But these don’t appear claims of them happening.

 

[humble minion]

This is the second time in less than a week I’ve seen someone make the comment that mentioning X in endorsing and promoting. (The other case involves an upcoming fantasy novel by R.F. Kuang, who’s alleged to, by having an apparently sympathetic or neutral portrayal of an individual from Country Doing Genocidal Things, promoting the genocidal things that country is doing. I am absolutely not going into more details; there are enough keywords there for someone who really wants to know more to search it out.).

I'm deliberately avoiding getting across the latest RF Kuang thing, but it's worth noting that Kuang is not a stranger to online controversy in the past (some understatement) and has a significant number of enemies, whether justified or unjustified I don't know. Again, I'm deliberately not across the details here, and have no idea of the rights and wrongs, but I find it perfectly plausible that this particular blow-up might not entirely be based in good faith by the people pushing it.

 

[Face]

If the name Ken Whitman sounds familiar, he was the guy in charge of several high-profile failed Kickstarters about a decade ago including a live action adaptation of the iconic gaming comic Knights of the Dinner Table that ended up getting him sued by the rights holder, Kenzer & Co. When Kenzer got the raw footage back from Whitman from I believe the result of a court order, Zombie Orpheus Entertainment edited it into a finished state as best they could and threw a release party at Gen Con, as promised in Whitman's Kickstarter pledge goals. Whitman tried to claim credit for both when he had nothing to do with either. In fact, Whitman attempted to run his own "Gen Con Party" to fulfill his requirement for the Kickstarter which...I can't remember the details immediately and I'm too lazy to look up my notes from the time, but I do remember to call it a "party" was a ridiculous joke and only a handful of people showed up because Whitman botched the notification since it was all last-minute and in response to ZOE's party.

Ironic his own profile calls him the "Dice Roller" when one of the more notorious failed Kickstarters was for "Pencil Dice", which was just a standard #2 pencil with the numbers 1-6 printed on the different sides of the pencil. And even that Kickstarter went unfulfilled, at least for a year or two after before I lost track of the guy.

My (ex)wife was one of the two backers that paid a roughly $300 premium to get front-row seating at the "premiere" and tickets for two to the after-party. Ken cancelled the party a couple weeks out, stating it wasn't promised or paid for, when it literally was a specific backer level. Roughly 24 hours prior he sent notice that said party was "back on", but held at 11:30pm at the Slippery Noodle hours after the viewing. The GenCon showing was not the promised premiere as he showed what rough footage he had at a previous convention. He did not have "VIP tickets" for the showing as promised, nor did he have the actors. Now most of the actors did show because of the efforts of KenzerCo and ZOE. People volunteered hotel rooms and I was present when Jolly Blackburn got one of the actors a room curtesy of Peter Adkinson.

Since most of the people who paid $450 or $250 for VIP seats (3 backers) knew each other, but we do not know how many VIP or After-Party "seats" Ken sold direct on his website, we were able to police ourselves and formed a separate line, along withe Barbara and Jolly Blackburn. GenCon staff tried to make us go to the back of the "regular" line, and IIRC I was a bit of a d**k about that (my bad).

Earlier that day I had checked with the Business Office of the Marriott that was originally slated to be the after-party location and was told that Ken had used a declined/expired credit card with his reservation paperwork so the room was never actually reserved. I did ask for a copy of that paperwork, or even just blank paperwork, but was understandably denied. I really didn't expect to get any.

When I got home from GenCon I looked up Kenny's "company" with every single US Secretary of State and discovered that D20 Entertainment simply did not exist as a legal entity. I went ahead and spent like $15 to reserved that name for 90 days to prove my point. I published a PDF of all 50 state's search over at Tenkar's Tavern and basically started my "Not Another Dime" campaign there, quickly moving it over to a blog (Not Another Dime) where I've been tracking Kenny ever since.

 

[Face]

On the one hand, I'm glad there's someone tracking all of this guy's grifts and cons. On the other hand, I think it could benefit from a "Who is Ken Whitman?" page to introduce visitors to our Grifter without reading through 11+ years of posts first.

Honestly, his name meant nothing to me until I looked at his list of aliases and recognized some of the projects.

Great Idea!

 

[Face]

It's worth mentioning that, despite the public's reaction and their post expressing interest in changing their ways, the "Most Influential Tabletop Game Icons" Facebook group continues to post AI slop bios every two hours on the dot as if on an automated timer. Who knows how many more are queued up.

And I'll reiterate what I've wondered before... Am I so out of touch with this industry that I don't recognize like 90% of the people he's doing bios for?

Ken has posted he had 600 already created....

 

[Byrd]

Ken has posted he had 600 already created....

And look at the wonderful places they are being posted to.

 

[Abstruse]

My (ex)wife was one of the two backers that paid a roughly $300 premium to get front-row seating at the "premiere" and tickets for two to the after-party. Ken cancelled the party a couple weeks out, stating it wasn't promised or paid for, when it literally was a specific backer level. Roughly 24 hours prior he sent notice that said party was "back on", but held at 11:30pm at the Slippery Noodle hours after the viewing. The GenCon showing was not the promised premiere as he showed what rough footage he had at a previous convention. He did not have "VIP tickets" for the showing as promised, nor did he have the actors. Now most of the actors did show because of the efforts of KenzerCo and ZOE. People volunteered hotel rooms and I was present when Jolly Blackburn got one of the actors a room curtesy of Peter Adkinson.

Since most of the people who paid $450 or $250 for VIP seats (3 backers) knew each other, but we do not know how many VIP or After-Party "seats" Ken sold direct on his website, we were able to police ourselves and formed a separate line, along withe Barbara and Jolly Blackburn. GenCon staff tried to make us go to the back of the "regular" line, and IIRC I was a bit of a dick about that (my bad).

Earlier that day I had checked with the Business Office of the Marriott that was originally slated to be the after-party location and was told that Ken had used a declined/expired credit card with his reservation paperwork so the room was never actually reserved. I did ask for a copy of that paperwork, or even just blank paperwork, but was understandably denied. I really didn't expect to get any.

When I got home from GenCon I looked up Kenny's "company" with every single US Secretary of State and discovered that D20 Entertainment simply did not exist as a legal entity. I went ahead and spent like $15 to reserved that name for 90 days to prove my point. I published a PDF of all 50 state's search over at Tenkar's Tavern and basically started my "Not Another Dime" campaign there, quickly moving it over to a blog (Not Another Dime) where I've been tracking Kenny ever since.

A much better summary of events. I covered all this back when it happened, but honestly I'm lazy and couldn't look up my notes to verify details. So I just went from my own memory of a story from about a decade and a half ago.

 

[Some Dude]

My (ex)wife was one of the two backers that paid a roughly $300 premium to get front-row seating at the "premiere" and tickets for two to the after-party. Ken cancelled the party a couple weeks out, stating it wasn't promised or paid for, when it literally was a specific backer level. Roughly 24 hours prior he sent notice that said party was "back on", but held at 11:30pm at the Slippery Noodle hours after the viewing. The GenCon showing was not the promised premiere as he showed what rough footage he had at a previous convention. He did not have "VIP tickets" for the showing as promised, nor did he have the actors. Now most of the actors did show because of the efforts of KenzerCo and ZOE. People volunteered hotel rooms and I was present when Jolly Blackburn got one of the actors a room curtesy of Peter Adkinson.

Since most of the people who paid $450 or $250 for VIP seats (3 backers) knew each other, but we do not know how many VIP or After-Party "seats" Ken sold direct on his website, we were able to police ourselves and formed a separate line, along withe Barbara and Jolly Blackburn. GenCon staff tried to make us go to the back of the "regular" line, and IIRC I was a bit of a dick about that (my bad).

Earlier that day I had checked with the Business Office of the Marriott that was originally slated to be the after-party location and was told that Ken had used a declined/expired credit card with his reservation paperwork so the room was never actually reserved. I did ask for a copy of that paperwork, or even just blank paperwork, but was understandably denied. I really didn't expect to get any.

When I got home from GenCon I looked up Kenny's "company" with every single US Secretary of State and discovered that D20 Entertainment simply did not exist as a legal entity. I went ahead and spent like $15 to reserved that name for 90 days to prove my point. I published a PDF of all 50 state's search over at Tenkar's Tavern and basically started my "Not Another Dime" campaign there, quickly moving it over to a blog (Not Another Dime) where I've been tracking Kenny ever since.

Doin' the Lord's work. Most people will make noise about unscrupulous jerks. But fewer people have the drive and persistence to keep it up. Love your site.

 

[tenkar]

Doin' the Lord's work. Most people will make noise about unscrupulous jerks. But fewer people have the drive and persistence to keep it up. Love your site.

NotAnotherDime should be on every gamer's bookmarks. The gaming community often has a short memory, but there are times a short memory is dangerous as hell.