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

[gorice]

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?

It's more about what this signifies culturally.

 

[gorice]

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?

You make yourself sound like a stage performer, not a participant. I think (and know, based on decades of experience) that roleplaying is fundamentally a game of imagination and the interplay between multiple people at the table. The rest is just set dressing.

That doesn't mean that you don't ever need prep, or that anything beyond minimal prep is always bad. But the idea that spending excessive time on extraneous stuff like art somehow makes for a better game flies in the face of all of my experience.

 

[ECMO3]

You make yourself sound like a stage performer, not a participant. I think (and know, based on decades of experience) that roleplaying is fundamentally a game of imagination and the interplay between multiple people at the table. The rest is just set dressing.

I agree it is a game of imagination and AI art improves the ability to relay that tremendously.

That doesn't mean that you don't ever need prep, or that anything beyond minimal prep is always bad. But the idea that spending excessive time on extraneous stuff like art somehow makes for a better game flies in the face of all of my experience.

Art is not extraneous and great art does make a better game. If it didn't why are there a bunch of AI programs AND a bunch of human artists producing art for D&D games?

Also note your argument is no longer against just AI art, it is now against ALL art in D&D. Art is superfluous; so then the human artists producing art for D&D are useless according to this position right?

What is the value in protecting the jobs of artists who are producing "window dressing"?

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

That doesn't mean that you don't ever need prep, or that anything beyond minimal prep is always bad. But the idea that spending excessive time on extraneous stuff like art somehow makes for a better game flies in the face of all of my experience.

I am with @ECMO3 on this. My players liked the use of images in our game, either as a prop or as part of the campaign journal (that relays in game information and serves immersion between games). They manifested a preference for having images over not having images. Spending time to get them is therefore one of my goal, but I prefer not spending too much time. That's why AI images is helpful, as I can get what I want quickly to do the job.

 

[ECMO3]

I am with @ECMO3 on this. My players liked the use of images in our game, either as a prop or as part of the campaign journal (that relays in game information and serves immersion between games). They manifested a preference for having images over not having images. Spending time to get them is therefore one of my goal, but I prefer not spending too much time. That's why AI images is helpful, as I can get what I want quickly to do the job.

Yeah.

Example from play - when the party finds a poem written on a scroll in a dungeon I could just recite it or type it out using word, but it is a lot cooler when I have a handout that shows a weathered tan parchment, torn at the corners written in script.

That may be "window dressing" but it substantially improves the game.

 

[ezo]

That doesn't mean that you don't ever need prep, or that anything beyond minimal prep is always bad. But the idea that spending excessive time on extraneous stuff like art somehow makes for a better game flies in the face of all of my experience.

I agree with the others that this is simply "flies in face" of all of YOUR experience.

Imagination is great (obviously) but having a shared vision given by art creates a more unified concept of what is going on in the game.

It is like the difference between Theatre of Mind combat and using battle maps (or sketches, minis, tokens, whatever). Many groups play just fine with ToM combat (I use it myself sometimes still), but a lot of players (newer players especially IME) prefer some form of battle map to help them visualize the scene, terrain, develop tactics, etc.

Neither is superior other than what works best for a particular group. As kids, we did nearly alway ToM with occassional map sketches. Now, 90% of my encounters (even random ones) use battle maps because it works best for my players.

Physical props, like the riddle scroll @ECMO3 mentions above is another example of how "art" can be more than just window-dressing.

Prepping all of that takes time, which I am happy to do to create a more enjoyable experience for the group as a whole.

I'll add that sometimes unexpected things happen, the PCs take a different path or whatever, so I have to adlib and wing it, in which case I'll resort to ToM so I don't waste game time in "further prep" and my group is fine with that when it happens, but it isn't their preference.