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.

 

[JLowder]

It would not surprise me if Ken reads threads like this not to get any insight, but to see if anyone says anything he can sue them for.

I posted something on the topic on my Facebook page, suggesting people understand rights of publicity laws and copyright/trademark, and he waded in with legal threats, then continued to double and triple down on the naughty word justifying his actions until I warned him to stop and then blocked him.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

View attachment 438218

A perfect example. Completely rough and at times inscrutable, but lightning in a bottle. Had Gygax wanted to line up professional writers, editors, and artists instead of himself, his wife, and his kids' friends, it would've likely been entirely out of financial reach.

I suspect and hope that, as happened with industrially created goods, there will soon come a time when the customers will pay more and prefer 100% human made stuff, rather than AI stuff.

Companies are absolutely going to try to get away with AI-generated content. But AI is incapable of creating art of any sort, and without art, what's the point?

I know, personally, that obviously AI generated ads turn me off from the company using them, especially when they're a mom and pop operation where just getting a teenager to film them in their store/bar/whatever would actually be charming and make me more likely to spend money with them.

Oh yeah, an AI ad, AI art, AI writing, that's an instant no for me.

I think the common term these days is “authentic”. And I hope that term is going to become more and more important as people seek out authentic content.

I hope so. It's not like Tilly Norwood took off.

I suppose that's part of the outrage over this site. Plenty of professional writers have put out serious works talking about RPGs and their creators. Put in the work with interviews, with their writing. And this is the opposite of that. Not just generic pablum, but outright fabrication (hallucination). There is no authentic voice to it, just words placed together because "Gary Gygax" is frequently mentioned alongside "creator of D&D."

 

[JLowder]

A perfect example. Completely rough and at times inscrutable, but lightning in a bottle. Had Gygax wanted to line up professional writers, editors, and artists instead of himself, his wife, and his kids' friends, it would've likely been entirely out of financial reach.

I'll take that a step and a decade or two farther with TSR.

Many of TSR's greatest successes through the mid-1990s came from (often non-"professional") creator-powered lightning strikes, and the failures can largely be chalked up to the company refusing the properly share the rewards (creative credit and/or money) from those successes when they came or insisting on standardizing them and bringing in inflexible and unwelcome "standard" professional practices.

TSR even circa 1990 looked from the outside like a giant professional company, and it certainly had income and resources, but you would be shocked at how much the creative divisions were run by publishing outsiders who had no experience with traditional publishing, with (often creator-friendly) practices that people with experience at the NY professional houses abhorred. (The Book Department is a great example of all this. I can share more details, but this may not be the thread for that.)

As company finances became more tenuous circa 1993 and 1994, Lorraine Williams brought in more and more "professionals" in mid-level management, and the systems they put in place helped throttle a lot of the creativity that had been powering the greatest company successes. (Jumping to the present market: AI will always appeal to these "professional" folks because they are either frustrated creators or never want to work with creators because the designers and artists are not cogs.)

Really, this is a systemic problem in tabletop publishing to this day, the flip side of the companies that crash because they have a surfeit of creativity and no ability to run the basic business parts of the operations.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I'll take that a step and a decade or two farther with TSR.

Many of TSR's greatest successes through the mid-1990s came from (often non-"professional") creator-powered lightning strikes, and the failures can largely be chalked up to the company refusing the properly share the rewards (creative credit and/or money) from those successes when they came or insisting on standardizing them and bringing in inflexible and standard professional practices.

I'd be curious to hear which products you'd consdier creator-powered lightning strikes. From what I've heard, Planescape only happened because the higher ups weren't paying any mind to it.

TSR even circa 1990 looked from the outside like a giant professional company, and it certainly had income and resources, but you would be shocked at how much the creative divisions were run by outsiders who had no experience with traditional publishing, with (often creator-friendly) practices that people with experience at professional houses abhorred. (The Book Department is a great example of all this. I can share more details, but this may not be the thread for that.)

As company finances became more tenuous circa 1993 and 1994, they brought in more and more "professionals" in mid-level management, and the systems they put in place helped throttle a lot of the creativity that had been powering the greatest company successes. (Jumping to the present market: AI will always appeal to these "professional" folks because they are either frustrated creators or never want to work with creators because they are not cogs.)

Really, this is a systemic problem in tabletop publishing, the flip side of the companies that crash because they have a surfeit of creativity and no ability to run the business parts of the business.

AI is unfortunately increasingly being measured in terms of licenses and tokens against salaries. Nevermind that the quality received in the trade-off is lacking.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'd be curious to hear which products you'd consdier creator-powered lightning strikes. From what I've heard, Planescape only happened because the higher ups weren't paying any mind to it.

It's early on, but one that immediately leaps to mind are the Endless Quest books. That was all effort by Rose, who was told to do it on her own time.

 

[jolt]

TSR failed in the 90's not because they weren't paying people, but because they were spending money predicated on future sales. Spending money you haven't earned yet is rarely a good idea. Sure, billion dollar publicly traded corps can get away with it, but TSR wasn't that. Sinking money into a lawsuit against Gygax and GDW that their own lawyers warned was a terrible idea just made it worse.

 

[LordEntrails]

AI is unfortunately increasingly being measured in terms of licenses and tokens against salaries. Nevermind that the quality received in the trade-off is lacking.

Many people discredit the value of "good enough".
Many consumers don't really care if it is art or just an image.
There is value in art, but not every image needs to be art.

 

[JLowder]

I'd be curious to hear which products you'd consdier creator-powered lightning strikes. From what I've heard, Planescape only happened because the higher ups weren't paying any mind to it.

Planescape is a great example of a late-stage TTRPG lightning strike, made possible, as you say, by management being distracted and people doing their jobs and having creative control.

From the book line, some of the major lightning strikes:

• The Endless Quest books and Rose Estes;
• Author Morris Simon, who wrote a lot of EQ entries, contacting the company out of the blue because he was running D&D for his girls and was pushing for more content with that audience in mind (both him coming in "over the transom" and the editors recognizing his talent);
• The original six DL novels and having untested Margaret and Tracy do them;
• Rick Knaak showing up, literally, on TSR's doorstep with a writing sample and a book editor accepting it and then recognizing his talent;
• Repeat with Bob Salvatore and Drizzt, though through the mail this time;
• The original Avatar project, which resulted in the first NYT bestseller for the Realms line and a bunch of connected game and comics releases (first time novelists, first time full editor);
• Receiving and recognizing submissions out of the blue from talent such as Christie Golden, Elaine Cunningham, Mary Herbert, etc. in the "slush" and creating platforms for them;
• Having a talent pool of untested fiction writers in or closely connected to the company that included Doug Niles, Carrie Bebris, Troy Denning, Mary Kirchoff, Jeff Grubb, Rob King, and on and on, folks who have gone on to publish elsewhere, showing they were not just getting work because of those connections. (If you go farther into the line history, Erin Evans, etc, etc.)

All this was happening with a publisher unconnected to New York and the mainstream publishing industry, at least until 1992, in the middle of essentially nowhere in Wisconsin.

On the editorial side, all this was made possible by a very small department of largely outsider editors. Only one of the editors in the department had significant publishing experience, and that was Bill Larson, who had worked for Western Publishing in Racine, WI on things like the Trixie Belden series before he came to TSR. Rose had newspaper experience. Jean Black had some publishing experience with non-fiction and educational publishing before she helped found and run the department; she was the person who recognized the fiction potential in Dragonlance and the person who gave Margaret and Tracy the chance to write the books after the pro she auditioned washed out. Mary Kirchoff, who "discovered" Bob Salvatore and took over the department after Jean, was a music major (if I am recalling correctly) who had worked her way up through the TSR ranks from magazines, under Kim Mohan, to books, in addition to her freelance writing work on the EQ line. Until 1992, no one in the department had done extensive genre fiction editing outside TSR or for New York houses (and then it was only the person running the department). Bob Salvatore's main editor after his first book or two with Mary Kirchoff was Eric Severson, an agricultural journalism major who was not extensively read in fantasy at the time and was not a gamer. That was, it turns out, the perfect pairing, as Eric helped Bob make the books more widely accessible. Bob had the fantasy and gamer parts well covered. When I edited Bob for the first two Realms anthologies, I took a very different editorial approach that, from Bob's own comments in his story reprints, helped him make the characters feel more like his creations. That worked out well but was hardly planned to play out that way.

All this before you get to the cover artists and art direction from folks such as Peggy Cooper. The sheer talent gathered in the art room, art department, and in the stable of freelance artists getting book cover assignments was and remains staggering.

This was all made possible by the creators who came together as staff and freelancers in those years. Upper level TSR ownership did not make those hires or find the freelancers. That was all powered by middle management (Mike Cook and Jim Ward, initially, then Jean and Mary) putting the right people in charge of things and then getting out of the way for them and the staff they brought on, who subsequently found the authors, along with Jean and Mary. When ownership did get involved, as when they brought someone with New York publishing experience in to run books in 1992, it tended to turn out badly.

 

[JLowder]

TSR failed in the 90's not because they weren't paying people, but because they were spending money predicated on future sales. Spending money you haven't earned yet is rarely a good idea.

That's only partially the case. Disrespecting creators (financially and creatively) had also driven away talent, both from staff and from the freelance pool. The diminishing sales for some of the lines, especially fiction, was also tied to that. If you are estimating predicted sales and budgeting based upon how books from Author X are selling and you replace Author X with someone else because you assume all writers are interchangeable, that will tend to hasten and not arrest the decline in sales. If you are establishing hostile rules and working environments for the talented staff and freelancers you still have, that's not going to let them shine--again, hastening sales declines and worsening your financial straits.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

It's early on, but one that immediately leaps to mind are the Endless Quest books. That was all effort by Rose, who was told to do it on her own time.

Absolutely. I think that Rose Estes' importance in creating an on-ramp for new D&D players cannot be understated.

Many people discredit the value of "good enough".
Many consumers don't really care if it is art or just an image.
There is value in art, but not every image needs to be art.

What's the saying about perfect being the enemy of good. And heck, I'd rather see a crappy bit of illustration that borders on outsider art than a polished AI-generated image.

Planescape is a great example of a late-stage TTRPG lightning strike, made possible, as you say, by management being distracted and people doing their jobs and having creative control.

From the book line, some of the major lightning strikes:

• The Endless Quest books and Rose Estes;
• Author Morris Simon, who wrote a lot of EQ entries, contacting the company out of the blue because he was running D&D for his girls and was pushing for more content with that audience in mind (both him coming in "over the transom" and the editors recognizing his talent);
• The original six DL novels and having untested Margaret and Tracy do them;
• Rick Knaak showing up, literally, on TSR's doorstep with a writing sample and a book editor accepting it and then recognizing his talent;
• Repeat with Bob Salvatore and Drizzt, though through the mail this time;
• The original Avatar project, which resulted in the first NYT bestseller for the Realms line and a bunch of connected game and comics releases (first time novelists, first time full editor);
• Receiving and recognizing submissions out of the blue from talent such as Christie Golden, Elaine Cunningham, Mary Herbert, etc. in the "slush" and creating platforms for them;
• Having a talent pool of untested fiction writers in or closely connected to the company that included Doug Niles, Carrie Bebris, Troy Denning, Mary Kirchoff, Jeff Grubb, and on and on, folks who have gone on to publish elsewhere, showing they were not just getting work because of those connections. (If you go farther into the line history, Erin Evans, etc, etc.)

All this was happening with a publisher unconnected to New York and the mainstream publishing industry, at least until 1992, in the middle of essentially nowhere in Wisconsin.

On the editorial side, all this was made possible by a very small department of largely outsider editors. Only one of the editors in the department had significant publishing experience, and that was Bill Larson, who had worked for Western Publishing in Racine, WI on things like the Trixie Belden series before he came to TSR. Rose had newspaper experience. Jean Black had some publishing experience with non-fiction and educational publishing before she helped found and run the department; she was the person who recognized the fiction potential in Dragonlance and the person who gave Margaret and Tracy the chance to write the books after the pro she auditioned washed out. Mary Kirchoff, who "discovered" Bob Salvatore and took over the department after Jean, was a music major (if I am recalling correctly) who had worked her way up through the TSR ranks from magazines, under Kim Mohan, to books, in addition to her freelance writing work on the EQ line. Until 1992, no one in the department had done extensive genre fiction editing outside TSR or for New York houses (and then it was only the person running the department). Bob Salvatore's main editor after his first book or two with Mary Kirchoff was Eric Severson, an agricultural journalism major who was not extensively read in fantasy at the time and was not a gamer. That was, it turns out, the perfect pairing, as Eric helped Bob make the books more widely accessible. Bob had the fantasy and gamer parts well covered. When I edited Bob for the first two Realms anthologies, I took a very different editorial approach that, from Bob's own comments in his story reprints, helped him make the characters feel more like his creations. That worked out well but was hardly planned to play out that way.

All this before you get to the cover artists and art direction from folks such as Peggy Cooper. The sheer talent gathered in the art room, art department, and in the stable of freelance artists getting book cover assignments was and remains staggering.

This was all made possible by the creators who came together as staff and freelancers in those years. Upper level TSR ownership did not make those hires or find the freelancers. That was all powered by middle management (Mike Cook and Jim Ward, initially, then Jean and Mary) putting the right people in charge of things and then getting out of the way for them and the staff they brought on, who subsequently found the authors, along with Jean and Mary. When ownership did get involved, as when they brought someone with New York publishing experience in to run books in 1992, it tended to turn out badly.

A lot of people don't really think about the impact of a good editor. The ability to recognize and refine talent. To have a vision but also have the willingness to take a chance. The same goes for a good art director.