Dear sweet Oghma. We can’t even get rid of it on TTRPGs.
Living in the golden age of AI kinda sucks. At first it was interesting to have these new tools to play around with, but then people start using it on things that definitely shouldn’t use AI
We can’t even get rid of it on TTRPGs.
It’s really really easy to do so. Just… don’t use it. It’s not like Hasbro can force you to play with their AI. Just get together with your friends and play D&D the old fashioned way if you prefer.
Well for what it’s worth they’re likely changing the license of D&D in the upcoming edition which will be more restrictive. There are also leaks from inside the company that they are basically considering the pen & paper market dead and are going to move to focusing on the online game in their proprietary VTT app in that edition.
So existing editions under the OGL or CC are safe, but the future edition is going to be much more of a walled garden.
The proposed change to the OGL caused such an inferno of negative reactions that Wizards of the Coast backed off of the license change. If they go through with it in the future anyway, though, then it’s still really easy to avoid. Just don’t play that version of D&D, use one of the existing ones. Or one of the innumerable other systems for TTRPGs.
Really, it’s not hard to not use a particular tool for this stuff. Dig out the old paper books if you want to go really old school.
They backed off of making any retroactive changes to existing editions. Given the information that was leaked in January, I highly doubt they will release the new edition under any open license. They’ve made it clear that they are investing hard in a proprietary VTT experience and their goal is to monetize that VTT heavily.
Yep, they backed off because people are starting to realize WOTC needs the players more than the players need WOTC. It’s a very odd reversal compared to most industries. WOTC could explode tomorrow and people could keep happily playing D&D for years to come without any issues.
That remains to be seen since one dnd isn’t licensed at all yet. The possibility is there for them to use a different license for the next SRD, but it given the backlash they got at the beginning of the year, I think it’s as likely they continue with Creative Commons on mechanics (which debatably aren’t copyrightable in the first place).
WotC have been kind of dicks so they can do what they want, I won’t be buying anything
Ever since I started studying AI back in 2015, this has been my #1 interest and end goal for AI.
I don’t think LLMs are quite good enough for what I want yet, but in a few years I think we may be there.
I really don’t understand why anyone would be complaining about this. No one is going to force you to use it. You can still run your own campaigns, this will just be an amazing tool to make it more accessible to new players, and take a lot of the work off of a DM that doesn’t have the time or want to put in the effort.
Imagine being able to select a setting and a ruleset, and having an AI generate an entire campaign for you along with music, location art, character art, etc, then be able to handle the rules for you, track your stats and equipment, etc and maybe even generate art for cool moments when you roll a crit.
It’s currently a great tool for a DM. I always end up being the DM for my groups and I’ve really enjoyed using LLMs and Art generators as tools, but if I could have a competent AI DM run the game for us so I could play, I would be SO happy.
This is amazing, and the negative response just seems like elitist, gatekeepy, crotchety bitter old man syndrome.
Eh, there’s a lot of valid things to be skeptical about. Using these tools as a DM is fundamentally different from using them as a massive corporation, as you’re not considering replacing your team of talented artists and writers to cut costs.
That said, done right, I also think this could be amazing. Legally train these models on the wealth of historical D&D art, and provide it to DMs to use during their campaigns to make maps, art for places the DM is describing on the fly, all of these things that no artist could possibly make because these locations are being invented on the fly as the players throw a skilled DM curveballs. D&D feels like an ideal “problem” for a lot of the “solutions” AI has to offer.
Exactly. I’ve been using AI (mainly ChatGPT and Midjourney) for my current campaign and it’s great. While I make up most of the campaign myself, ChatGPT is like a supercharged contextually aware DM app. “Come up with a monster that would fit x situation”, “make up a riddle for the players”, “what do the rules say about x?” and so on. It’s like having another person to discuss the creative choices with, but that person is an expert that knows every rule, monster, place and so on.
My group doesn’t strictly follow the rules anyway, but this is still dumb. To me the whole point of playing DnD is to have real human interaction!
The inclusion of AI doesn’t lead to the lack of human interaction.
We’re using plenty of random generators and software to provide content since years…
Sure, I’ll still be sitting with my friends and we can ignore the ML crap.
I could be wrong, but this just reeks of Hasbro trying to cash in on the “AI” hype. With this and the recent licensing thing I’m hoping to switch to a different system anyway.
The nice thing with DnD though is you can play in your own way. If you like all the ML stuff, go for it and enjoy it! :)
Indeed. There are plenty of groups of people who would love to play together but who just don’t have anyone who’s willing or able to act as the dungeon master. If AI gets good enough then this could lead to a great expansion of social interaction over a D&D table.
And if someone wants to play solo, why not support that too?
The key to it all is the if AI gets good enough part. If it doesn’t then all this is moot.
