I started this post as a series of thoughts in 2017.. Yeah 2017, then in 2022 I finally created a campaign and Facebook became a tool to manage members, messages, link sharing and physical resources and planning events. Finally now in 2023.. oh wait 2024 with AI art and assistants everywhere I’m getting around to publishing.

This started out as a simple post on how you could use AI assistants in your game to answer simple questions, and how rudimentary bots such as D&D Beyonds Avrae brought the rules and integrations to your chat clients. How this is a good thing, and impressive when it was 2022. I particularly like that Avrae was always an open source product if you were so inclined you could get involved, and or if you were less inclined but still technically capable or willing to learn you could still adapt and alter it’s implementation for your self https://github.com/avrae/avrae. It was open, public and free.

Now we get to the new wave of AI assistants. AI GMs, etc. I’m not going to get into what AI is, the internet is on fire with that information and Large Learning Models ( LLMS ). Also as I held my breath way too long, I’ll just share this list of ( debatably good, bad and indifferent) AI Assistants https://topai.tools/s/dungeons-and-dragons-ai. Not just chatbots, but tools and assistants that can generate objectively art, descriptions, settings, encounters and any other manner of useful components for your game.

Note: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility!

I use that line, not lightly. AI is diverse in every gaming and other subject group I’m in. From the arguments on all kinds of proven bias, to it’s ethical usage, training and exploitation. Lack of ethical call back to sources and bias and lack of over site. The forums of the internet such has Reddit and Facebook are full of people over joyed to be able to create art using a new medium and tool that suits their purpose, pocket and desire. It is equally full of people calling them out for enabling the misuse of artists work, the dilution of the art and the wide spread plagiaristic nature of the tools.

AI tools are great enablers, but the detractors are not wrong. The initial business model and lack of governance and ethics in training, using and publishing AI LLMS such as ChatGPT is deeply worrying if you care or pay enough attention.

Do they have a place in TTRPGS? in LARP? undoubtedly they do, from the creativity in game ideation, to use as a tool and or prop during the game. I’m yet to see or hear of it, but I think it’s only inevitable an actual AI will take the place or role of the AI character in a LARP, or TTRPG scenario and the players, game designers and or Game Master will simply role with the AIs input to the game in how it answers the players interactions. Just like any other character in a game.

AIs are today widespread being used as assistants to pre write tables, scenarios, encounters, background and prop letters. This for a home game seems the perfect use they are simply replacing what would have been the GMs use of search engine and web resources and maybe a little of their creativity but maybe the use of Prompt engineering in AI usage is a form of that creativity. That is a discussion in it’s own right. That home use although not palatable to all is in my opinion the same usage has always. GMS have always found and reused or plagiarised material whether it is a film script or a map of a old castle.

Where this argument finds venom and fire is in the commercial sector where AI art has been passed off as something else, and people are uncomfortable with the plagiarism for profit aspects. Companies have made mistakes in the introduction, usage and handling of criticism https://www.enworld.org/threads/wotc-we-made-a-mistake-when-we-said-an-image-not-ai.701976/ highlighting the abuse further and driving it further away from acceptability. But it as also spawned witch hunts and false accusations https://www.wargamer.com/dnd/ai-art-accusation-apology to run wild.

The same lack of acceptance as been made apparent for written material too not just generative art. So today we are seeing a place for AI and we are already seeing the boundaries tried and tested for AI usage.

I’ve used it at my table, random encounter tables, npc outlines are easy to generate and simple to incorporate as they are created and are very open ended by nature of teh tools responses. Equally trying to stat creatures, monsters and NPCs is a step too far for the tool. it is system bias, and it is also unchecked and as such generally erroneous in what it creates, or provides all value is lost trying to validate those efforts. so like any tool AI as a place and a usage and it is not always the tool for the job.

So in writing this article we get to AI is not the end of creativity, but it is a plagiaristic device that should be used with thought and consideration. When used at home in private it has a value equivalent to older techniques for accomplishing the same outcomes. While it’s wide spread commercial usage is seemingly unacceptable and should not be dismissed or ignored as a factor when you are buying or using commercial material. Go try it for your self, you may or may not enjoy the experience.