Anyone who thinks this is a “maybe” isn’t paying attention. For the record, this is going to suck such massive donkey balls.
Don’t forget: from the people who literally thought 4E was the low-effort key to even more profit: bringing WoW to TTRPG format. What’s not to like? 🤦🏼♂️🤢
its certainly not going to be good. Having used AI in various way to augment my campaign, it is POSSIBLE to be used well, but Hasbro has given zero reason to believe they can do it
Here’s an idea. Let’s replace the DM with a computer to lead the module and make other decisions. While we are at it, we can digitize the module and program it directly into the DM. The module and the DM can be combined with a digital display so that there is no need for dry erase markers or theater of mind. Finally, to save time, we can automate the dice rolls with random number generators run directly by the DM/module computer program.
Think about that! Your favorite role playing games, fully integrated into a computer! The future of gaming.
Fun fact: Monopoly was originally called The Landlord’s Game and was made by a Georgist to illustrate the inherent unfairness and ruthlessness of capitalism and especially the exploitative nature of land ownership.
Then ruthless capitalists made a couple tweaks and made vast riches selling a derived but legally destinct version celebrating the very things the original vilified before being bought out by Hasbro who now control D&D.
I’m sure he is quite right that the CEO has never played D&D though. Or any other game. He was produced in a lab and spends every waking moment (which are all of them since they engineer CEOs not to need sleep) devising ways to be an even more terrible facsimile of a human.
I'm fine with it just in general. If they can make an AI that does a good job dungeon mastering it's going to open up the hobby tremendously. New players can jump right in even if they don't know an existing experienced player to hold their hands, the "forever DMs" can be free to play too, groups that just don't have any DM can play.
If it's bad at DMing then nobody will use it. Oh well. If human DMs want to DM, they can do that too. It's just the same as with the art AIs, the existence of these things doesn't stop people from still doing things "by hand" if they want to.
I suppose it could go wrong if WOTC keeps throwing money down an AI money pit for a system that never works quite right, and then they end up losing market share to a system created by a scrappy startup that does but it’s built on a different fantasy TTRPG system.
You realize that no one complained that ai art would discourage people from drawing, right? It’s because the ai scans other artists works and designs an imitation based on its prompt. It’s stops artists from being able to profit from their work because it introduces a free alternative that stole their designs to learn.
I think the bigger concern than whether or not it’s good will be what it learned from.
I’m pretty sure about it. No one who suggested that deserves to be taken seriously. But intellectual property theft is a legitimate concern and comparing them as equal concerns is disingenuous.
Lots of people produce content and make a living off of 5e, and not just 3rd party producers, plenty of people use patreon as a means to distributetheir work. Will the ai be trained exclusively on WOTC playtesting or will it be able to scour the internet for plot hooks and npcs and loot and whatever else it needs? It’s inevitable, and well known that some of that content has been reposted and copied in various places across the internet. The damages they suffer from user piracy wouldn’t be comparable to an ai running multiple games on an online platform owned by the ‘world’s most popular rpg’ not to mention that they would be charging for at least a onednd or dnd beyond or whatever they’re calling it this week, subscription.
It’s not as simple as “oh cool, more people could play”. It’s just their next attempt at eliminating the third party market.
It’s just their next attempt at eliminating the third party market.
Since third parties can make AIs too I don't see how this would do that. It's just an innovative new product they might be first to market with, others can also join the market with their own versions of it.
Could start with the Anasi’s Tapestry of Lives free preview.
I bought it after reading through the preview. Definitely helps to have really well fleshed out NPCs every once in a while to make up for the eh NPCs I have.
I have no issue with AI in tabletop roleplaying. Being able to create an NPC and just define its position and what it’s motivations are could lead to some really organic interesting gameplay.
I totally disagree with how that articles author lumps in AI with NFTs too. AI is supplemental. It’s just a tool to further expand on existing technology like search engine optimization. NFTs don’t provide anything like that. They are just gimmicks.
AI discourse has way too much “Throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” especially from a lot of people who have no idea what they’re talking about. AI, as a thing, is not a perfect system. It’s not a magic panacea that will cure all. There are legitimate concerns about how much it infringes on creative spaces and how it may put people out of work. There are also legitimate concerns about the AI training data scraping web-hosted content indiscriminately without permission. However, these are not the same as AI just being “bad”.
Do I think a D&D campaign led by a ChatGPT-like DM would be “good”? Probably not as it stands. I’ve played a lot with ChatGPT and its limitations are pretty obvious. Could it get better in the future? Probably. Is it an interesting possible way to get to play D&D if you can’t get a group together? I mean, it’s gotta be better than nothing, right? But the real interesting prospect to me is machine-learning powered tools for the DM. A System that’s trained on WotC-owned resources that lets you just choose a paintbrush that’s labeled “cave” and draw out a series of tunnels and have it automatically populate with crystals and mushrooms and visual points of interest, which lets you sketch out a good-looking map in minutes. Then, as your party is in the cave, the system knows what type of “biome” you used so it has a button to let you generate a random encounter, which it takes from your character levels and where your players are. There’s a lot of ways that “smart” tools could take a lot of work off the DM’s shoulders that would be great. I don’t know if they’re in the pipeline, but the point is that AI isn’t a boogeyman that’s just out to steal jobs and IP.
I really like that you mentioned machine learning. ML is a great practical application of a subset of AI. You don’t necessarily need an advanced AI DM. Sometimes you just need a tool to simplify DMing. I remember writing cellular automata that would build maps and dungeons. That’s not using ML or neural networks or anything like that, but it was code that simplified my task. People tend to think about the hype behind buzzwords and not how they are practically applied.
Do you have a teleportation circle or a portal? A teleportation circle is like a star trek teleporter your velocity is matched with the destination on arrival no cannon.
If you have horizontal portal then sure you could drop a Boulder down such a shaft but I would be careful as this is open to exploit.
“Velocity is matched with the destination” : that makes sense, but do you have a citation?
The character’s are time-traveling, are only 6th level, and a single permanent tele circle takes a year, so I’m not fretting too much about being exploited by the players. Plus, it’s a good group so I think we’d work it out.
You could table rule this out, but given that your Empire is effectively a nexus city state it could be wiped out fairly quick if the party managed to gain control of said tower or built one of their own. Heck an Illusionist with Mislead and a little luck could probably wipe out the city by impersonating the Emperor.
Re. “creatures only”: Do you have a reference for that? I assume it’s “creatures and possessions” and not “Terminator”-style naked?
Well, the premise is that the BBOG is aware and paranoid of magical overthrow and does everything in its power to discover and “re-educate” or kill casters. They have a Stasi-like “Magisterium of Arcana” with a monopoly on spell books and rare components, informers and spies, etc. The party time-traveled back to this era and even the 6th-level Cleric, Warlock, and Sorcerer (in particular) would be considered major threats and are being pursued by a Hans Landa-esque character who knows they exist, but no details. (Kind of off-topic, but it’s been a really fun couple of sessions at the table developing this… :-) )
Teleportation spells that function for creatures such as Dimension Door, Misty Step, etc. also transport objects that the creatures are wearing or carrying.
As to the source the spell specifically states creature.
A shimmering portal opens within the circle you drew and remains open until the end of your next turn. Any creature that enters the portal instantly appears within 5 feet of the destination circle or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied.
This is a fairly important distinction as there are other higher lvl spells, specifically Gate, that allow for the transport of anything.
Travel through the portal is possible only by moving through its front. Anything that does so is instantly transported to the other plane, appearing in the unoccupied space nearest to the portal.
That said your strategy might allow for the use of heavily armored kamakazi Kobolds carrying dynamite.
Thanks for that! I was going to talk about siege provisions moving through the portals Teleportation Circle, so good to know it’s restricted on that.
Re. exploits from enemies, my idea is that there are 32 “Teleportation Circle Traps” that are isolated corridors with two permanent circles at either end, an “external” circle that is to be connected to the external environment and an “internal” circle that is connected to the Mustering Hall itself. So you have your highly disciplined troops moving at a precise jog go through an external->trap temp circle in 1 round before it closes and then mages in the Mustering Hall open another internal->trap temp circle. The thought is that if bad guys get into one of these traps, they still don’t have immediate access to the citadel. (If I can figure out a good encounter for the players, I might trap them in one of these and throw in a “can be flooded” vs. maintenance tunnels or air shaftts, maybe a passage above with murder holes, etc. But if I can’t do something with it, it’s just going to be dungeon-dressing and its okay if it’s not 100% logical.)
That is indeed very cool, although I for one would have expected the town green to be a bit more centralized, or at least for the town to have spread around it more evenly…
Very nicely done - and a great selection of others there too. My son is a budding DM so these will be perfect for him. How does your patreon work? I’m assuming there’s something preventing people from signing up for a month and simply downloading everything!
Thank you! Well, the short of it is that depending on the tier you sign up for, you’ll be able to download a certain amount of previously released One-Shots or Adventures every month. All the files are hosted on google drive, so when a patron requests access I can approve them! That prevents the issue you’re talking about! You can find the finer details in my Index and FAQ
There is a way to access all the content though, I just recently added yearly memberships, and anyone who becomes a yearly legend will get 2 months free, unlock everything I’ve ever made, and all upcoming content for the next year along with 6 exclusive fully prepped One-Shots that are being released Bi-Monthly!
Hope that answers all your questions, If you’re curious about anything else just let me know!
As with everything produced and brought to market by a (huge) company: the will ruin their product in the end (and might have done so already).
But that’s not so terrible. 5e is pretty much an open game with a free license and there is a bunch of Indie RPGs out there and people are still playing (clones of) older editions of DND (I woupd advise anyone who hasn’t heard about that to find out about it).
My only concern really is their IP. I love the Realms, Eberron, etc. They’ve been ruining pretty much everything lately I mean Just look at spelljammer.
But they didn’t produce a lot of content for Eberron and Spelljammer for quiet some time, did they? One could say, that that part of their IP has been shitty for some time already.
I just hope the hobby as whole grows and at the same time more people learn about other ttrpg stuff out there. That new Eberrons and new Spelljammers come to be.
dnd
Oldest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.