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.

 

[tyler87432f]

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 website 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.

Yah

 

[Bae'zel]

I only used it to create NPC portraits or visual references when I can’t find what I want through a typical image search on Bing (where half the results are AI anyway).

Not entirely happy, but it’s a tool at the table for quick prep.

 

[ECMO3]

That’s not a job people have in the modern world. There’s an academic discussion to be had about whether the invention of the printing press, the typewriter, and the word processor were all net goods for society in their time or not, but use of those technologies today isn’t directly harming anyone’s livelihoods. The same cannot be said of AI.

There is also an argument that maybe people should not have a job of artist in the modern world or perhaps there should be far fewer of them (as there are still small numbers of people working as scribes).

The internet and message boards like this one are absolutely taking jobs from printed newspapers, bookstores, libraries, churches, barber shops and other places. Areas where large numbers are losing jobs today, yet there is no moral argument made against using computers or even artists advertising on the internet.

When it comes to intellectual property; Dungeons and Dragons itself "stole" heavily from other works, particularly Tolkein, and then like AI actually released this "stolen" property into the public domain. The thread between licensed work and the final product in most RPGs is a lot stronger than the thread between AI art and an original artist. If using AI art in your game is "stealing" then isn't it "stealing" to even playing RPGs with with Orcs and Halflings at all?

In any case me using AI art in my games harms no one as I would not be hiring anyone for that anyway. Even if you subscribe to the argument that I am "stealing" from them (I don't), it is still not harmful to them. Even if it is stealing; it is like stealing day old bread out of the garbage after someone threw it away, or taking a couch someone put out to be picked up by the trash.

To date I have only used AI art in my game. I plan to start using it to do a first draft writing of rooms, not the final but to give me something to start working with.