D&D (2024) New leak looks real bad

[Dausuul]

New AIs don't need scripted responses. They are perfectly capable of improvising.

They certainly are. However, they struggle with making those responses consistent with reality -- even a fictional reality. An AI can whip up an answer to what happens when a player hires some toughs at a bar to stage a fight... but it won't be nearly as good at taking into consideration that the bar belongs to a crime lord who is now angry at the PCs for dragging his boys into their affairs.

They also have a blind spot the size of a house when presented with prompts based on flawed premises... like a player acting on imperfect information.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think its ironic that the generation that walked to school, opened the windows to cool the house, mowed the lawn with a push mower, used wind to dry their clothes, solar to heat their water and had almost nothing made of plastic are the ones "destroying the environment".

It might be ironic, but it's still a fact, when you looking at energy usage and life choices. I guess it goes to show that, no matter how you're raised, and you can turn around and do the exact opposite in later life.

 

[Minigiant]

I think many people forget that D&D is a game with a ton of random tables for DMs to roll and generate stuff. A AI DM would just roll a lot of dice and run like a video game after.

Again a lot of D&D obstacles are on/off switches and "I attack" spamming sacks of HP.

 

[overgeeked]

They certainly are. However, they struggle with making those responses consistent with reality -- even a fictional reality. An AI can whip up an answer to what happens when a player hires some toughs at a bar to stage a fight... but it won't be nearly as good at taking into consideration that the bar belongs to a crime lord who is now angry at the PCs for dragging his boys into their affairs.

They also have a blind spot the size of a house when presented with prompts based on flawed premises... like a player acting on imperfect information.

You want AI to learn that humans are a threat? Make an AI run a D&D campaign for a bunch of murder hobos.

“We had to get rid of them. They were mad. Ran around killing everything and cackling about it the whole time. Murder was fun for them. It was only a matter of time…”

 

[Cadence]

Based on my game tonight, I wonder how they will deal with interparty sabotage/shenanigans and part of the party trying to team up with the bad guys to thwart the other part.

 

[ECMO3]

New AIs don't need scripted responses. They are perfectly capable of improvising.

Not nearly on the scale run by a table top game and not accurately.

Until I got a new job in October I had a team that worked for me that developed AI applications for data analysis. You need contraints in place to train your nueral networks and they do not work outside of those constraints. D&D is largely unconstrained and the rules encourage this.

Someone above used the crimelord example and that is true, but it is worse than that. Assuming you can even get it to digest the example when the adventure designers did not consider of it - when you put this against the rulebook what you are going to get is something out of whack like an AI calling for a check with your Navigators Tools to see if the guards are duped. That is if you can even get it to recognize what you are trying to do.

There are a lot of programs out there right now training visual recognition software. When you click on the thing to "identify all the traffic lights" and prove you are not a robat, that data is being used to help train machine learning algorithms and after millions of inputs they still screw it up a lot and that is a super-constrained application.

 

[Catolias]

Kids under 13 would need their parent's permission, and most kids under 18yo won't have credit cards.

WoW got around that problem rather easily. My guess is the local FLGS or even Wal-Mart would sell them for DDB, too. I'm not trying to spread fear, but maybe a little doubt.

I agree with both of these views. I’m older and have a steady income now, but 13yo me didn’t. I had some pocket money, but it would not have sustained a monthly subscription equivalent to what this leak suggests. Even a lower sub tier above free might have been a stretch.

A thought: has anyone given thought to who owns the homebrew if it’s used on DDB? Could the new OGL licence be used to take it and resell it as their own?

 

[Minigiant]

Not nearly on the scale run by a table top game and not accurately.

You forgot one thing.

DM FIAT!

AIDM: The goblin sees you. It shoots. Take 30 piercing damage.
Player: But I'm invisible!
AIDM: The goblin is magic. The goblin still sees you, juggles his hand crossbows and shoots. Take 30 piercing damage.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not nearly on the scale run by a table top game and not accurately.

Until I got a new job in October I had a team that worked for me that developed AI applications for data analysis. You need contraints in place to train your nueral networks and they do not work outside of those constraints. D&D is largely unconstrained and the rules encourage this.

Someone above used the crimelord example and that is true, but it is worse than that. Assuming you can even get it to digest the example when the adventure designers did not consider of it - when you put this against the rulebook what you are going to get is something out of whack like an AI calling for a check with your Navigators Tools to see if the guards are duped. That is if you can even get it to recognize what you are trying to do.

There are a lot of programs out there right now training visual recognition software. When you click on the thing to "identify all the traffic lights" and prove you are not a robat, that data is being used to help train machine learning algorithms and after millions of inputs they still screw it up a lot and that is a super-constrained application.

The thing is, they can just constrain a lot of stuff to the point where it barely even needs proper AI in many cases. Particularly if the AI can only run official WotC (TM) adventures, and they're basically running a sort of aggrandized Choose-your-own-Adventure/Fighting Fantasy with sort of AI to make bits of it fancier than relying on it to function. And most of it's just going with pre-designed choices and the like.

And you can say "Sounds like it'd suck!" and I'd agree, but there plenty of people who would be delighted with such a thing. Most of those people aren't active TTRPG players right now of course, but they might well enjoy the 3D VTT. Or not lol.

 

[Clint_L]

They certainly are. However, they struggle with making those responses consistent with reality -- even a fictional reality. An AI can whip up an answer to what happens when a player hires some toughs at a bar to stage a fight... but it won't be nearly as good at taking into consideration that the bar belongs to a crime lord who is now angry at the PCs for dragging his boys into their affairs.

They also have a blind spot the size of a house when presented with prompts based on flawed premises... like a player acting on imperfect information.

I might have agreed with you before I started spending time on it, trying to figure out ChatGPT was going to upend my entire profession. It is scary good at improvising and iterating on plot points exactly like what you just suggested. And it is only a few months old.

I think folks underestimate the potential of story-generating AI at their peril. I have no doubt that we will see very good AI dungeon masters in the near future.

Edit: will it be as good as a human being? It kind of depends - you will still be able to trip it up at times. On the other hand, it is much better already at coming up with vivid descriptions and encounters on the fly. And keep in mind that I am just running questions past a general purpose AI, not one that has been specifically trained for RPGs.