Quote from: Orphan81 on July 30, 2024, 06:23:34 PMI think you and Leopold are overthinking this. That isn't meant as an insult by the way.

As I mentioned, I am deep in this field, not just as a job. This is a subject that I read about and contemplate outside of work. Compared to pretty much any other person, I will of course come off as overthinking it.

QuoteI don't believe Wizard's plans on having an AI DM that can respond to any input a player puts in or actions they want to take... Far, far from it.

I have had real people in real life talk to me with the notion that this is a possibility either now, or in the near future. It is entirely reasonable to assume that anyone who lacks the technical background to understand LLMs thinks that this is what's going on. This phenomenon is not helped by the fact that techbros keep overhyping LLMs and whackjobs claim their instance of chatgpt is sentient.

I would find it entirely believable if someone found evidence that some asshole at WotC or Hasbro in a suit believes this is a possible thing and is demanding that it be done, and also believable that the tech people attempting to implement it believe it's entirely possible and within their skills to make it so.

QuoteI think instead they're more gunning for something that can adjudicate pre-written Adventures with a very limited set of options and responses.

You don't need AI to do this. It's called a "video game" and we've had those since the 80s.

QuoteThe new crop of D&D players won't care... They'll log on with their weird non-human characters, roleplay with one another over text and then go through the Adventure provided for them.

I honestly believe the casual 5e fanbase will be perfectly okay with this. No they won't be able to engage in deep roleplay with NPCs, or make any kind of crazy descision you could with a living, breathing, thinking Dungeon Master..

But they'll get to play their special character, pay 2 win for the special skins and custom outfits and magic items... Go through the Adventure with the DM to "Level up" and then "RP" in a thinly disguised chatroom posing as the local 'tavern'.

To my knowledge, I've never met one of these people. I'm aware that they exist, obviously, but I find it hard to believe that this is anything more than a very vocal yet very tiny minority.

QuoteWizard's wants to create a slower version of World of Warcraft with dice rolls. That's what this is going to come down to.

But the whole point of the AI DM will be to run you through an Adventure with Limited options so you can level up your character and ERP with the Transgender Kobald Artificer in the Tavern afterwards.

If you're running a prewritten adventure and have predefined decision points where players select what to do from a menu -- again, that's a video game, and we've had these for as long as I've been alive. Or those "choose your own adventure" books, which are probably even older. You don't need AI to do this.

It is my understanding that the main draw of AI in a D&D-type situation is that the AI can create new scenarios and situations on the fly, without needing to think or page through books to do so. Because techbros like to show off how their models can shit out walls of seemingly-coherent text, and what is a D&D adventure if not, effectively, just walls of text? And that they can respond in real time and have seemingly-coherent conversations, which is the other half of being a DM.

It also doesn't help that yes, a current-gen LLM probably could run a given adventure or module and possibly be able to respond reasonably to player antics. Because those are small enough in scope that the model won't run off the edge of its context window, so you probably won't witness any huge continuity errors. But anything added by the model or extra crap it has to add because of player antics is going to have very loose causal connectivity, if any, and that is one of the major hurdles to having an actual AI DM.

Quote from: GnomeWorks on July 30, 2024, 07:00:51 PM

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 30, 2024, 06:23:34 PMI think you and Leopold are overthinking this. That isn't meant as an insult by the way.

As I mentioned, I am deep in this field, not just as a job. This is a subject that I read about and contemplate outside of work. Compared to pretty much any other person, I will of course come off as overthinking it.

QuoteI don't believe Wizard's plans on having an AI DM that can respond to any input a player puts in or actions they want to take... Far, far from it.

I have had real people in real life talk to me with the notion that this is a possibility either now, or in the near future. It is entirely reasonable to assume that anyone who lacks the technical background to understand LLMs thinks that this is what's going on. This phenomenon is not helped by the fact that techbros keep overhyping LLMs and whackjobs claim their instance of chatgpt is sentient.

I would find it entirely believable if someone found evidence that some asshole at WotC or Hasbro in a suit believes this is a possible thing and is demanding that it be done, and also believable that the tech people attempting to implement it believe it's entirely possible and within their skills to make it so.

QuoteI think instead they're more gunning for something that can adjudicate pre-written Adventures with a very limited set of options and responses.

You don't need AI to do this. It's called a "video game" and we've had those since the 80s.

QuoteThe new crop of D&D players won't care... They'll log on with their weird non-human characters, roleplay with one another over text and then go through the Adventure provided for them.

I honestly believe the casual 5e fanbase will be perfectly okay with this. No they won't be able to engage in deep roleplay with NPCs, or make any kind of crazy descision you could with a living, breathing, thinking Dungeon Master..

But they'll get to play their special character, pay 2 win for the special skins and custom outfits and magic items... Go through the Adventure with the DM to "Level up" and then "RP" in a thinly disguised chatroom posing as the local 'tavern'.

To my knowledge, I've never met one of these people. I'm aware that they exist, obviously, but I find it hard to believe that this is anything more than a very vocal yet very tiny minority.

QuoteWizard's wants to create a slower version of World of Warcraft with dice rolls. That's what this is going to come down to.

But the whole point of the AI DM will be to run you through an Adventure with Limited options so you can level up your character and ERP with the Transgender Kobald Artificer in the Tavern afterwards.

If you're running a prewritten adventure and have predefined decision points where players select what to do from a menu -- again, that's a video game, and we've had these for as long as I've been alive. Or those "choose your own adventure" books, which are probably even older. You don't need AI to do this.

It is my understanding that the main draw of AI in a D&D-type situation is that the AI can create new scenarios and situations on the fly, without needing to think or page through books to do so. Because techbros like to show off how their models can shit out walls of seemingly-coherent text, and what is a D&D adventure if not, effectively, just walls of text? And that they can respond in real time and have seemingly-coherent conversations, which is the other half of being a DM.

It also doesn't help that yes, a current-gen LLM probably could run a given adventure or module and possibly be able to respond reasonably to player antics. Because those are small enough in scope that the model won't run off the edge of its context window, so you probably won't witness any huge continuity errors. But anything added by the model or extra crap it has to add because of player antics is going to have very loose causal connectivity, if any, and that is one of the major hurdles to having an actual AI DM.

You're exactly right, it's just a video game. One with bad graphics and a slower interface.

But that's the thing. The video game people are the ones RUNNING Wotc now.

Microsoft and Activision/Blizzard veterans.

Wotc fired the majority of their writing staff now that the new edition is finished, they don't need them anymore.

Hell, did you look at the pre-order for the new edition? It's set up EXACTLY like a triple A pre-order spreadsheet. It even comes with an exclusive Skin for pre-ordering.

You may not have met these 5th edition players, but they exist. They're the ones with subscriptions to D&D beyond already.

They're the ones that are cheering on the complete removal of any and all racial bonuses and penalties.

They're the ones that wanted the removal of alignment and buy the Coffee shop adventure scenarios.

They are young Millennials and elder Gen Z. They're the ones that play video games and are going to get excited at the cash shop which will have exclusive skins for their virtual dice and virtual minis.

They just need an AI that works like one in the many many turn based rpgs out there that already exist, but is slightly more responsive.

That's why it will only run pre written and programmed Wotc adventures. That's why Wotc is hiring staff that know about AI like you.

The future for Wotc is selling rules piecemeal to players with recurrent subscriptions, and skins like Fortnite and call of duty for miniatures and dice.

I'm glad I dumped D&D back in 2000 with 3E because...

- I like different XP for different classes
- I like more than 3 types of saving throws
- I like not having a rule for everything and getting bogged down in the details. Rulings, not rules.
- I guess I'm officially a RPG grognard and I'm proud of it.

I hear ya!  I have been out of the WotC feed trough for a long time.  Too many games, too little time to spend it in a rut.

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 30, 2024, 06:23:34 PM

Quote from: GnomeWorks on July 30, 2024, 04:18:24 PM

Quote from: THE_Leopold on July 30, 2024, 12:45:43 PMGenerativeAI+LLM's are only going to get better at speaking to humans based on the context we put in.  We are 3-5 years from having tournaments being solely AI run if there is a complete lack of humans to run the games.

We absolutely are not "3 to 5 years away" from this. I say this as a data scientist who regularly works with AI models, and who not only understands the technology, but keeps up with the science and methodology behind it.

Will we possibly see attempts made within that timeframe? Of course. People think these things are fucking magic and lack the understanding not only of how and what the machine is doing under the hood, but also of how the brain works and how laughably lacking current approaches to AI are in approximating neurological functions that would actually make an AI a passable DM. These attempts will either be (1) under incredibly controlled situations and scenarios that ensure the AI doesn't lose important information to context window size, or (2) will eventually out themselves as not tenable for long-term TTRPG play due to there actually being no causal reasoning happening.

In order for this to really happen and be tenable, we need a fundamental paradigm shift in the AI/ML space. Something on the level of transformers and attention, but geared towards either causal reckoning or some kind of long-term memory storage and retrieval system but in context of a model. Given the general tendencies of the techbros, however, I doubt such a thing will be forthcoming: everyone seems convinced that LLMs and stable diffusion are on the level of the holy grail, when they really, really aren't.

I think you and Leopold are overthinking this. That isn't meant as an insult by the way.

I'm expecting a better form of MUD for response, the ability to have multiple people speak to a chatbot and respond back with results with the ability to do mathmateical randomity (roll dice), and to deliver procedurely generated maps and artifically generated images.

All of this is capable now to do in bits and pieces.  Tying this altogether is a non-trivial task and will require dump trucks of money and years of time to perfect.   Like Gnomeworks stated, having the AI have a long term memory to be storing the IO as well as referecing over time is not cheap.

Will this completely replace a human being for a thousand hour mega-dungeon campaign that is randomly generated and ever involving?  No chance in hell. ChatGPT barely is able to remember what version of RPG rules I'm using consistently.

Can i get a smarter version of a Lone Wolf or Choose My Own Adventure book? Yes.  This is the expectation and what WOTC will deliver, a consumer friendly version of  HAL9000  or Westworld is impossible at this time.

It's moving faster than you think, I'm alpha testing some AI GM stuff for an indie developer and dang, the chat AI has been pretty lucid and entertaining.  And, this is just one guy.

[disclaimer: It is still a chat bot and is not playing a tactical RPG on a grid.  That's a totally different level of competence.]

Quote from: zircher on July 31, 2024, 05:25:25 PMIt's moving faster than you think, I'm alpha testing some AI GM stuff for an indie developer and dang, the chat AI has been pretty lucid and entertaining.  And, this is just one guy.

[disclaimer: It is still a chat bot and is not playing a tactical RPG on a grid.  That's a totally different level of competence.]

How competent does an AI need to be tactically? Standard video game AI should be sufficient.
As a board/wargame player in addition to being into RPGs, I know that I don't want to make a tactical combat too challenging, because some players aren't heavy into that aspect of the game. They just want to bonk monsters and be the heroes.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 31, 2024, 06:44:40 PM

Quote from: zircher on July 31, 2024, 05:25:25 PMIt's moving faster than you think, I'm alpha testing some AI GM stuff for an indie developer and dang, the chat AI has been pretty lucid and entertaining.  And, this is just one guy.

[disclaimer: It is still a chat bot and is not playing a tactical RPG on a grid.  That's a totally different level of competence.]

How competent does an AI need to be tactically? Standard video game AI should be sufficient.
As a board/wargame player in addition to being into RPGs, I know that I don't want to make a tactical combat too challenging, because some players aren't heavy into that aspect of the game. They just want to bonk monsters and be the heroes.

BG3 does tactical combat just fine, it's not perfect but it works.

True, but BG3 is a big budget game with a big team.  The LLMs used by chat AI is not designed for that kind of spatial work.  You have to create a game engine that the AI could talk to and interact in a meaningful way.

Quote from: zircher on July 31, 2024, 10:18:28 PMTrue, but BG3 is a big budget game with a big team.  The LLMs used by chat AI is not designed for that kind of spatial work.  You have to create a game engine that the AI could talk to and interact in a meaningful way.

No it isn't. No it isn't at all. Larian is not a large company, nor did they have a gigantic budget.

They mage Baldurs gate on a small box of budget with a small team. They are not a triple A company.

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 29, 2024, 04:48:12 PMChatGPT is apparently a passable DM from what some have said..

Those that were saying it could were lying through their teeth. We caught the ChatGPT staff on various fora pushing it hard and for a time they had a spambot giving glowing praise of how great a DM it was and then the examples were lower grade than a 10 year old and copied piecemeal from online writers.

Companies are already finding that this fake AI craze was a suckers deal.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 29, 2024, 06:17:20 PMThey also said it was under monetized and complained that most players don't buy the books IIRC.

That is because they apparently have no idea they actually were already monetizing D&D online.

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 31, 2024, 10:47:25 PM

Quote from: zircher on July 31, 2024, 10:18:28 PMTrue, but BG3 is a big budget game with a big team.  The LLMs used by chat AI is not designed for that kind of spatial work.  You have to create a game engine that the AI could talk to and interact in a meaningful way.

No it isn't. No it isn't at all. Larian is not a large company, nor did they have a gigantic budget.

They mage Baldurs gate on a small box of budget with a small team. They are not a triple A company.

News flash, there were 400 people on the BG3 team.  Larian is much bigger than you think.  They have seven studios around the world.

https://www.pcgamer.com/larians-baldurs-gate-3-team-is-10-times-bigger-than-when-it-made-divinity-original-sin/

Quote from: M2A0 on July 30, 2024, 02:07:14 PMAs far back as 2011, if not earlier, there has been a goal of removing the DM from the equation. At least we didn't get the collectible 4.5E that Kierin Chase was pushing at the time. The pre-proto 5E days where wild. The IP almost got shelved.

Gamma world for 4e had the CCG glued onto it.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 30, 2024, 02:38:54 PMI might be wrong, but I don't think I am. I'm betting they'll bleed the people dumb enough to subscribe to their walled garden with micro-transactions up the wazoo.

Oddly enough on Beyond they removed the option to just buy parts you want. Now its all or nothing.