D&D (2024) Using AI for Your Home Game

[gorice]

Considering how many groups have used modules in the past and published adventures in 5E, I think there is something very seriously right going on.

You might as well tell people who enjoy reading to not be so lazy and write their own novels.

Huh? If you want to read a book, read a book.

Roleplaying is not improv and as a DM I spend more time prepping adventures then I spend running them. There is little that is spontaneous about being a DM, there is some things, but not a lot.

Bluntly: you're doing it wrong. There's no way you should be doing so much prep. Roleplaying isn't 'improv' in the theatrical sense, but if everyone is just following a script, you're just doing amateur theatre. Play requires intersecting actors and emergent outcomes.

I dislike AI in the arts fields, but I'll admit that I was open to trying out an AI ttrpg note-taking program. It's an LLM that uses transcripts of your sessions to write synopses, highlights, etc. It's pretty new and far from perfect, but i am hoping that it'll help me where I often fail: taking notes of my sessions when I run online. I can do it in-person with a notebook, but online I am too pressed running the game.. I fail to type out a few notes here and there of names etc.

Automating grunt work like note taking is the kind of thing LLMs are actually be good for (though last I checked it's pretty bad in practice at this point). What drives me insane is people trying to automate their own creative powers.

 

[OptionalRule]

Automating grunt work like note taking is the kind of thing LLMs are actually be good for (though last I checked it's pretty bad in practice at this point). What drives me insane is people trying to automate their own creative powers.

Particularly in note taking and summarizing, I've found this very helpful. it's nto magic though and you still need to put in the work. I use the lazy DM Prep method and have a pretty good set of prep-notes. I have a player that takes a pretty good set of session notes. I drop them both in an LLM and ask it to create a session summary and I get a pretty good result. I have to refine but it works well.

I would argue that nobody uses AI to automate creativity as they clearly didn't want to be creative in the first place, but that is splitting hairs. While I don't use it in that way, I don't think anyone owes me an explaination of what they do and why either.

I think we're missing an opportunity to use LLMs to help our own creativity. Folks can agree or disagree with this all they like (and they will), but I find it really useful to have the LLM ask me questions about my game. As a proctor, it's not everything, but every little bit helps. The process of answering those questions has been helpful at times.

Also. I find LLMs to be the ultimate 'Rubber Duck' GM too. Rubber Duck is a term from software engineering that, when you're stuck on a problem, you have a Rubber Duck nearby that you explain what you're trying to do in great detail. When you're done explaining, the answer often becomes obvious. LLMs are much the same way for me. By the time I've typed out my "I'm trying to do X to solve Y, ask me questions that would be helpful in resolving this." By the time I fully describe X and Y, I usually have my answer. The questions on top of it sometimes prompt me to develop an even better solution.

When I streamed my session prep it was much the same thing. By the time I was done explaining what I was tryng to do and why it was important to the audience, I always had my answer.

Again, peoiple can like or not like this but I'm putting it out there for anyone who finds it useful. This in addition to dropping my PDFs in something like Notebook LM and asking questions when I need to do a reference lookup.

Edit: Moved the streamed session prep comment to seperate paragrah.

 

[ECMO3]

Bluntly: you're doing it wrong. There's no way you should be doing so much prep. Roleplaying isn't 'improv' in the theatrical sense, but if everyone is just following a script, you're just doing amateur theatre. Play requires intersecting actors and emergent outcomes.

Bluntly, you don't know what you are talking about.

I have been a DM for 44 years and have DMed for both friend games and paid games. I play over 200 games a year, DMing for around 80 of those. Almost every player I've ever played with is pretty darn happy with my performance. I think I know what works for me and the hundreds of groups I have played with.

The DMs I played with who put little to no work in their game did not have a great game. That can be fine for some friendly games, but it is not adequate for professional DMs and it is not the equivalent of someone who spends time developing the plot, the monsters, the treasure etc..

You claim it should take very little time. So if your game tomorrow has 5 NPCs the party will likely be interacting with, and a castle on a hill, how much time does it take you to draw those NPCs and castle by hand .... since of course you would not use AI or "steal" someone else's image for this.

You claim it takes you no time to prep, how do you do the art then ... or do your tables just not get that experience when you are a DM?

 

[Distracted DM]

Automating grunt work like note taking is the kind of thing LLMs are actually be good for (though last I checked it's pretty bad in practice at this point). What drives me insane is people trying to automate their own creative powers.

I can see both sides of it with using AI for creativity- but I know where I fall, on the "I wouldn't feel like it was my own work" side.

People can use it to break creative blocks to give them ideas that they'll expand on, etc etc. I get it.
Buuut it's just as easy to ask AI to write you a riddling poem and then edit it... But I couldn't take credit for that, I wouldn't feel like I was responsible for it, a machine cooked it up, I was just the editor.

 

[cbwjm]

I can see both sides of it with using AI for creativity- but I know where I fall, on the "I wouldn't feel like it was my own work" side.

People can use it to break creative blocks to give them ideas that they'll expand on, etc etc. I get it.
Buuut it's just as easy to ask AI to write you a riddling poem and then edit it... But I couldn't take credit for that, I wouldn't feel like I was responsible for it, a machine cooked it up, I was just the editor.

For that last bit, my friends and I don't even try to take credit for it. We'll happily tell the group afterwards that it was a chatgpt riddle.

 

[ezo]

Huh? If you want to read a book, read a book.

Yeah, I guess you missed that point...

Bluntly: you're doing it wrong. There's no way you should be doing so much prep. Roleplaying isn't 'improv' in the theatrical sense, but if everyone is just following a script, you're just doing amateur theatre. Play requires intersecting actors and emergent outcomes.

(Bolded) Yeah, um, it isn't up to you to tell someone they are "doing it wrong". Every DM is different. Some prep a lot, some wing it a lot, and most fall inbetween the extremes IME.

I spend more time in prep, or at least the same, as I do running the adventure. I do that so when I run the adventure, everything is taken care of and it runs smoothly.

Automating grunt work like note taking is the kind of thing LLMs are actually be good for (though last I checked it's pretty bad in practice at this point). What drives me insane is people trying to automate their own creative powers.

Again, I think you missed the point. People aren't trying to automate their own creative powers (which is impossible, of course), they are using creative AI to give ideas, guidelines, or fill out things they might already have in mind.

Or perhaps you were trying to make some other point??

But I couldn't take credit for that, I wouldn't feel like I was responsible for it, a machine cooked it up, I was just the editor.

For that last bit, my friends and I don't even try to take credit for it.

Same. Not for riddles (since I haven't used AI for that), but for the art work and maps I make using AI I bring up they are AI often enough. My players can tell if it is a map I made in Dungeondraft or something, or a "quick AI map" that filled its purpose to help us play.

 

[Mecheon]

Well art is in the eye of the beholder and AI images are pretty decent generally. if I spend 15 minutes fiddling with AI in an interative fashion to make 20 images one of them will generally be better than if I commission an artist to make the image.

Eh, I'll disagree. Mind art is subjective but, the overly airbrushed style that AI uses is downright attached to 'lazy' at this point. It always generates the same exact style of work. Even if you're not counting the fingers and toes to check if its AI, like some sort of fae, it always has that similar style to it no matter what style its trying to do

Meanwhile if you commission an artist you can get anything you want and not have to fight with the system in it. If you want a very specific look to something? Commissions will get it

I know what I like, but there is a big difference between improv and roleplay. Here is a good video from Ginny Di that that discusses this topic:

I'm gonna disagree with that one. While its not exactly improv, it relies on a lot of the same ideas at its basis. You' ve got a very specific basic guideline. I'd argue a lot of the Twitch popularity of D&D is based on that spontinaity. "What is character X gonna do to get out of this one?", where 'charisma check the guards to have them absolutely fall for the character' or 'craft some crazed concoction out of the ingredients in a cleaning shed to break down a wall' are possibilities.

Plus, well, we've seen how to a lot of people the worst thing D&D can be is scripted, rather than freeform. If there wasn't that improv aspect to it, railroading and scripting wouldn't be as badly perceived

Do you mean in the RPG space? Or in all markets?

There was already in this thread of a 4th example of AI use in the RPG space. Using AI to generate summaries of play sessions.

Having seen what AI does with summaries, while it is a use, I'm not exactly sure its an accurate one or not

At its heart though that is voice recognition and I'd argue probably more a seperate tech from the larger generative AI space

In all markets? Well, the RPG space and the impacts you identified are just the tiniest use for what AI is actually impacting. I won't bore you with details as you can Google it, but just some of the markets that are seeing major impacts from AI are: defense, advertising, journalism, engineering & vehicle safety.

AI's primary use in most industries is data analysis, but that's what AI's been used for for years and not the 'ai revolution' pundits are insisting is on the way. Generative AI chatbots have proven time and time again to be incredibly subject to abuse and to provide poor customer support or assistance. Journalism's steps into AI have not only a terrible reputation, but tend to just scrape from Reddit in the first place which turns out to be, incredibly abuseable.

AI's reputation at the moment is any company that shoves it out in the open is one that's trying to cheap out on customer service and actually helping you. That's its reputation, its not a good one.

 

[LordEntrails]

AI's primary use in most industries is data analysis, but that's what AI's been used for for years and not the 'ai revolution' pundits are insisting is on the way. Generative AI chatbots have proven time and time again to be incredibly subject to abuse and to provide poor customer support or assistance. Journalism's steps into AI have not only a terrible reputation, but tend to just scrape from Reddit in the first place which turns out to be, incredibly abuseable.

AI's reputation at the moment is any company that shoves it out in the open is one that's trying to cheap out on customer service and actually helping you. That's its reputation, its not a good one.

I believe that today's "AI" is not AI. They are mostly just predictive tools for interpolating or extrapolating large data. Things "we" have been doing for decades to a lesser degree.

But, I was really just wondering if you were only available in the AI space or in a wider view. I will say there are a lot of industries working with AI that you have not mentioned, and it does not have the same rep there as it does with the ones you mention.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Automating grunt work like note taking is the kind of thing LLMs are actually be good for (though last I checked it's pretty bad in practice at this point). What drives me insane is people trying to automate their own creative powers.

Maybe you shouldn't concern this much over what other are doing in their game. That you feel they are underperforming and could have a better time doing X and not Y is one thing, but isn't being driven insane a little bit much?

I can see both sides of it with using AI for creativity- but I know where I fall, on the "I wouldn't feel like it was my own work" side.

People can use it to break creative blocks to give them ideas that they'll expand on, etc etc. I get it.
Buuut it's just as easy to ask AI to write you a riddling poem and then edit it... But I couldn't take credit for that, I wouldn't feel like I was responsible for it, a machine cooked it up, I was just the editor.

Sure. I don't feel like I painted anything when I present an AI illustration to the players. I spec'ed and edited it, sure, but it's not mine. Interestingly, if I had commissionned an artwork, I would have done the same amount of effort (writing a detailed set of instruction so the image matches my vision) and it would be mine.

However, the alternative would be to use some pre-existing image that wouldn't be mine either, and could be a copyright infringement.

 

[ECMO3]

Eh, I'll disagree. Mind art is subjective but, the overly airbrushed style that AI uses is downright attached to 'lazy' at this point. It always generates the same exact style of work.

You don't have to get airbrushed style any more. This might have been true 3 years ago, but you can get pencil drawings, cartoons, anime style, water colors, high detail etc.

I mean it is not perfect and some of the errors are very cringeworthy (like fingers and toes), but the volume of images you can get in a short time almost garuntees a great one.

Plus, well, we've seen how to a lot of people the worst thing D&D can be is scripted, rather than freeform. If there wasn't that improv aspect to it, railroading and scripting wouldn't be as badly perceived

You do need a lot of flexibility, but there is also a lot of preparation. There is an "improv aspect" to it but game is not a the same as improvisation where things are wide open and you are making things up on the fly.

AI's reputation at the moment is any company that shoves it out in the open is one that's trying to cheap out on customer service and actually helping you. That's its reputation, its not a good one.

I think that is changing with apple making it front and center on their new products.