WotC: We Are Not Making AI Dungeon Masters

Adding to the recent spate of YouTube-based claims about WotC's plans for Dungeons & Dragons were some additional claims -- (a) that D&D Beyond would have $30 subscription fee; (b) that homebrew content would not be permitted on lower tiers; and (c) that DDB was actively working on AI Dungeon Masters.

Some of this was based on a (long ago debunked) slide from a presentation last year.

WotC has made some clarifications:

Hey, everyone. We’ve seen misinformation popping up, and want to address it directly so we can dispel your concerns.

Rumors of a $30 subscription fee are false.

No one at Wizards is working on AI DMs. We love our human DMs too much. If you’re looking for a DM, we suggest heading to our Discord where DMs and parties are looking for players.

We have designers whose core job it is to compile, analyze, and then act upon your feedback. Your feedback has made the game better over the past decade, and your feedback is central to D&D’s future.

Homebrewing is core to D&D Beyond. It's not going away, and we're not going to charge you for it. Your homebrew is, and always will be, yours. We’ve always been excited to see your creations both on and off D&D Beyond!

There is still no clear statement regarding the Open Gaming License v1.0a, however.

 

[Greggy C]

It is the forte of the game designers. Not so much the leadership.

So, not really so laughable.

Thanks for the clarification...

sigh

 

[Mercurius]

Notice: OGL 1.0 still not commented on.

This. Everything circles back to this, and everything else is window-dressing - a bit of a distraction from what they really want to do, and want to hide that they're doing - and also, and most importantly, what impacts the larger RPG publishing world.

 

[Minigiant]

There's no money in making a new RPG. Not by Disney standards. The only way I see Disney getting into RPGs in a serious way would be them buying Hasbro to get D&D. Which would not surprise me in the least. It would be bad though - if you think Hasbro has a problem with open content, imagine what Disney would do. There'd be lawyers at your door the first time you home brewed a monster! (Exaggerating. A little. But they have threatened legal action to force pre-schools to stop using Disney murals).

Exactly. There's no money in designing an RPG from scratch.

Disney, Amazon, or any of the 3 letter networks would have to buy up a popular 2nd place RPG or create their own and be more vicious that WOTC/Hasbro.

That's the problem. There are only 2 RPGs big enough on their own now (D&D and WOD), 1 up and comer (Path/Starfinder 2e) and 2 that were popular because it was built on a video game but is outdated (Star Wars d20 and Fallout).

So if anyone gets in, they would have to come in so hard they make WOTC look like nice guys.

Edit: Added Fallout Special system.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I thoroughly believe them on the AI DM thing, at least. It's been pretty well established for some days that this is a misread/typo of AL (ie, Adventurer's League) DM, but it's gotten a frustrating life of its own because people keep amplifying it. A bit like that rubbish about Knights of the Old Republic a fortnight ago.

As for the rest - well, we'll wait and see. Even once the new OGL draft is released it won't include D&D Beyond pricing structure though, so we might be waiting for a while.

I misread this as a "Knights of the Dinner Table" MMORPG (I must have been scanning too quickly and saw Knights of the... OGL) and my mind went wild for a moment!

 

[Aldarc]

Exactly. There's no money in designing an RPG from scratch.

Disney, Amazon, or any of the 3 letter networks would have to buy up a popular 2nd place RPG or create their own and be more vicious that WOTC/Hasbro.

That's the problem. There are only 2 RPGs big enough on their own now (D&D and WOD), 1 up and comer (Path/Starfinder 2e) and 2 that were popular because it was built on a video game but is outdated (Star Wars d20 and Fallout).

So if anyone gets in, they would have to come in so hard they make WOTC look like nice guys.

Edit: Added Fallout Special system.

Call of Cthulhu is conspicuously absent.

 

[delericho]

I'm actually quite disappointed by that. An AI DM sounds like quite a useful thing to have available.

(And, yes, current AI would suck at the job. But you kind of have to start somewhere.)

 

[Minigiant]

Call of Cthulhu is conspicuously absent.

There's a reason for that

 

[Corinnguard]

An AI plus Virtual Reality technology, like the kind seen in the Sword Art Online anime. Why role-play when you can really get into character?

 

[jerryrice4949]

It's literally not about that. This is about another topic

Thank you. Feels like so many thread get hijacked by the same topic.

 

[Aldarc]

There's a reason for that

Enlighten me please as I am puzzled by its absence. CoC is easily one of the biggest TTRPGs outside of D&D/Pathfinder, with CoC being bigger than D&D in Japan. I often see CoC mentioned before even WoD when it comes to playing other non-D&D/Pathfinder games. It's the long-time second alternative.