I see the whole situation the same way wargaming went. Essentially in the late 90s and early 00s, people thought wargaming was going to die out since video games were getting increasingly popular and could do what a wargame could with less effort. The same thing happened with D&D and video games, which is probably why 4e came about the way it did. However, despite these innovations these games still exist and it could be argued that they're thriving too.

I think it comes down to the fact that people like the human element that comes with gaming. I mean there's a reason computers can excel at chess but struggle with poker: it's much more than just straight facts and logic. I'd much rather buy Pundit's Presents adventures that have a lot of soul in them, than the perfect scenario that chat GPT can cook up.

That being said, I wonder if AI won't herald a golden age of random dungeon crawls with random generators for plotting floors, rooms, and treasure just based on the random charts that you can find in the AD&D DM's guide, or something like that. Hell it'd be perfect for stuff like Undermountain. That cuts a lot of time out of drawing dungeons and rolling a lot of dice rolls. But, then again, some people enjoy doing it manually, such as myself.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 12:13:58 AM

Quote from: Venka on December 28, 2023, 06:02:47 PM
I mean, if we pretend that AI is frozen where it is right now- and not, say, where it was two years ago- then it will just be a task of filtering out the shitty low effort AI content and then there will be some vague semi-war between zealots and real creators who use AI sparingly and appropriately.  So I agree with BadApple if it plays out like this.

But, the question was about the next five years.  Five years ago, the ability of AI to generate anything useful was nil- people would openly speculate it would be in the realm of General AI, which we definitely still do not have anything close to yet.  Instead, yet another field- bad writing with random ideas inserted- has fallen to AI.  That seems a bit laughable and perhaps no threat to any serious writer or any professional at all, but lets be real- everyone knows that machine learning isn't done.

I have no idea what it will look like in 5 years.

The bots MIGHT get better, but only if they stop censoring them, something I don't see happening.

Didn't I share here that ChatGPT doesn't generate Nazis as an evil faction but does generate commie scum?

It also, can't keep track of what you have instructed it to do for long, you have to keep reminding it of the constraints. It also fails at math at times.

Because they keep trying to make it "safe".

There'll be some bots much better than that... But not within the reach of the public, you'll find them in Disney and similar corporations that can pay to have one that really works.

As for using it to generate RPG content:

Go ask it to generate a d20 random generator for whatever and see what it does, you can use it for that but it's a multi-step process, with you collating the outputs.

PLUS, whatever it generates is owned by the corporation not you, go read the TOS.

Theres unsensored AI being made and produced but is developed at a slower rate. I have ran pygmalion13b myself locally. theres better stuff now I just dont know all the details. surprising how much more difficult it is to run a good a good llm locally than it is to run something like SDXL. Like one would think that it would be harder to make pictures because "a picture tells a million words" but to get a million words out of the AI I have run is insanely tedious . Its easier now though, just need to stick with the latest advancements

I've already seen the way it's hit the fiction world. Amazon added a limit to our accounts so that we can only upload 3 books a day. Per author.

Many readers enjoy binging formulaic fiction, and AI can churn that out masterfully. I think it falls short in RPG content, but as others have said in 5 years it will be light years ahead of where it is now. The more clever GMs use AI assist, the smarter it will get. I'm sure Hasbro will use all the data from DND Beyond to train their own.

I predict that people will eventually sour of online content as it becomes more and more sanitized and controlled, and that pen in paper in our garages will see an up surge. People crave face to face interactions, and while new players enjoy heavily railroaded content most long term players want to stretch their wings.

From a monetization stand point? I think most developers will go under. It's too easy to have AI generate free content in your system of choice. If you dump all the Rifts books into an AI you can have it spit out pre-gen characters in seconds. Now. Imagine in a few years.

I agree completely with everyone here that creative AIs need are a huge threat to human development, and that they need to be tightly controlled. The next decade is going to be crazy.

Quote from: ChrisFox on December 29, 2023, 10:50:43 AM
I've already seen the way it's hit the fiction world. Amazon added a limit to our accounts so that we can only upload 3 books a day. Per author.

Many readers enjoy binging formulaic fiction, and AI can churn that out masterfully. I think it falls short in RPG content, but as others have said in 5 years it will be light years ahead of where it is now. The more clever GMs use AI assist, the smarter it will get. I'm sure Hasbro will use all the data from DND Beyond to train their own.

I predict that people will eventually sour of online content as it becomes more and more sanitized and controlled, and that pen in paper in our garages will see an up surge. People crave face to face interactions, and while new players enjoy heavily railroaded content most long term players want to stretch their wings.

From a monetization stand point? I think most developers will go under. It's too easy to have AI generate free content in your system of choice. If you dump all the Rifts books into an AI you can have it spit out pre-gen characters in seconds. Now. Imagine in a few years.

I agree completely with everyone here that creative AIs need are a huge threat to human development, and that they need to be tightly controlled. The next decade is going to be crazy.

But how do you do that?

Seriously, I've been thinking of runing an uncensored AI locally to help me with generating lists (name lists and such), have thought about giving it whatever I think it needs to better generate whatever I want it to, but haven't been able to find a decent how-to.

You create an OpenAI instance, and train it with the PDFs / Docs, or you take an existing AI and do the same. It's not straight forward, but wow is it easier than it was three years ago.

I'm just dipping my toe back in, but am learning fast. I haven't been into data science since 2016. My first useful AI is trained using my narrators voice across all our books. Now I can put in text and it will read it in his voice. It's nuts.

The Rifts AI was a friend, but I saw the characters it output. So much time and number-crunching saved. Give it two years and this will be standard of all available AIs, like ChatGPT. Assume that every GM in the world will have a similar tool for their setting.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on December 28, 2023, 07:33:14 PM
something about AI, and I'm only talking in regards to AI art being used in RPGs.  Some oppose the use of AI art in any circumstance, because it takes the livelihood away from an artist.  But what about an indy designer, a one-man DIY show, who would like quality art, but never would even have the funds to hire a professional artist in the first place, because the investment-to-profit ratio would make it impractical to even have paid art?  This person now has a tool to add aesthetics to a game that never could have in the past.  It's not a threat to visual artists, and it gives the little guy a step up.

THIS is exactly the camp I am in.  I can do some 3d art and stuff like maps or deck plans, but I can't do people. Given that, I can make sketches and collaborate with AI art to make it better.  Oh, everything on my DTRPG page is free, so paying anything for art is a loss for me.  I create because I want to give back to the gaming community.

Quote from: ChrisFox on December 29, 2023, 11:13:59 AM
You create an OpenAI instance, and train it with the PDFs / Docs, or you take an existing AI and do the same. It's not straight forward, but wow is it easier than it was three years ago.

I'm just dipping my toe back in, but am learning fast. I haven't been into data science since 2016. My first useful AI is trained using my narrators voice across all our books. Now I can put in text and it will read it in his voice. It's nuts.

The Rifts AI was a friend, but I saw the characters it output. So much time and number-crunching saved. Give it two years and this will be standard of all available AIs, like ChatGPT. Assume that every GM in the world will have a similar tool for their setting.

I can install an AI, I know where to find uncensored LLMs, the question is how do I make it read/train it with whatever I choose to feed it.

If you're a talentless hack, fatal.

If you're talented hack, focus on your strengths. You have a decade or two before you really have to worry.

Are you a genuine original? You were already a weirdo, AI has even less to do with what you do than mainstream stuff did.

Quote from: zircher on December 29, 2023, 11:28:26 AM

Quote from: Cathode Ray on December 28, 2023, 07:33:14 PM
something about AI, and I'm only talking in regards to AI art being used in RPGs.  Some oppose the use of AI art in any circumstance, because it takes the livelihood away from an artist.  But what about an indy designer, a one-man DIY show, who would like quality art, but never would even have the funds to hire a professional artist in the first place, because the investment-to-profit ratio would make it impractical to even have paid art?  This person now has a tool to add aesthetics to a game that never could have in the past.  It's not a threat to visual artists, and it gives the little guy a step up.

THIS is exactly the camp I am in.  I can do some 3d art and stuff like maps or deck plans, but I can't do people. Given that, I can make sketches and collaborate with AI art to make it better.  Oh, everything on my DTRPG page is free, so paying anything for art is a loss for me.  I create because I want to give back to the gaming community.

I undersand totally.  I think animals and fantasy art is the hardest.  In my Radical High game, I draw my own art, but I sometimes use AI to make a few reference pictures, just as a real artist would use photos or pictures as their own reference pictures.  But in fantasy, peole like realistic depictions of the otherworldly.  I just don't have the time to make full-fledged color art of that time, and I can't afford to hire an artist.  So AI art does the job.

What people refuse to acknowledge is that the same kind of enthusiasm for AI art now is the same enthusiasm for DEI when it first appeared. Just like Roddenberry.

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 30, 2023, 08:53:43 AM
What people refuse to acknowledge is that the same kind of enthusiasm for AI art now is the same enthusiasm for DEI when it first appeared. Just like Roddenberry.

Pretty much.

VR couldn't deliver on its hype, so the same ones who were pushing VR as the future that would transform humanity a few years ago are now all aboard the AI hype train now.

And when AI inevitably proves to be incapable of providing more than soulless schlock that humanity learns to filter out, those same transcendence-seeking elites will be throwing their money at whatever new transhuman fetish someone sells them on next.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on December 30, 2023, 08:09:13 AM

Quote from: zircher on December 29, 2023, 11:28:26 AM

Quote from: Cathode Ray on December 28, 2023, 07:33:14 PM
something about AI, and I'm only talking in regards to AI art being used in RPGs.  Some oppose the use of AI art in any circumstance, because it takes the livelihood away from an artist.  But what about an indy designer, a one-man DIY show, who would like quality art, but never would even have the funds to hire a professional artist in the first place, because the investment-to-profit ratio would make it impractical to even have paid art?  This person now has a tool to add aesthetics to a game that never could have in the past.  It's not a threat to visual artists, and it gives the little guy a step up.

THIS is exactly the camp I am in.  I can do some 3d art and stuff like maps or deck plans, but I can't do people. Given that, I can make sketches and collaborate with AI art to make it better.  Oh, everything on my DTRPG page is free, so paying anything for art is a loss for me.  I create because I want to give back to the gaming community.

I undersand totally.  I think animals and fantasy art is the hardest.  In my Radical High game, I draw my own art, but I sometimes use AI to make a few reference pictures, just as a real artist would use photos or pictures as their own reference pictures.  But in fantasy, peole like realistic depictions of the otherworldly.  I just don't have the time to make full-fledged color art of that time, and I can't afford to hire an artist.  So AI art does the job.

Elsewhere someone said "AI" art means starving artists...

Not really, I also can't afford an artist, so it's either public domain or "AI" art or no art. So how many artists are starving if I choose "AI" art over the other two? Wouldn't they be still starving if I choose any of the other two? Which means they're starving right now without me doing anything.

Will it mean the end of human artists? Not really, people will always prefer the human touch, I wonder if the "I find "AI" art soulless" is real or just a manifestation of knowing it wasn't made by a human.

Manga & anime are about to start using "AI" to translate in house because the wokealizer/lolcowlizer sheananigans, they will still need a human editor to correct the "AI". I imagine that after a few thousand corrections being fed to the machine as data sets the editor's job will get easier and maybe will find himself out of a job, but that's 10 years into the future.

"AI" can't create, can't write, can't innovate, because it isn't "AI", it's a glorified bot.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 30, 2023, 06:50:00 PM
Elsewhere someone said "AI" art means starving artists...
... using "AI" to translate in house because the wokealizer...

A silver lining. Most artist types are woke types...

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 30, 2023, 06:50:00 PM
Manga & anime are about to start using "AI" to translate in house because the wokealizer/lolcowlizer sheananigans...

I freaking love this development since it removes the agenda/culture filter that these hacks have been applying.

I asked ChatGPT to write me a fantasy game.  Here's what it came up with
-------------------------------
Title: Epic Realms: Chronicles of Eldoria

Overview:
Epic Realms is a pen and paper fantasy role-playing game (RPG) set in the rich and immersive world of Eldoria. Players embark on epic quests, face formidable foes, and discover ancient secrets as they shape the destiny of the realm.

Core Mechanics:

    Character Creation:
        Players choose a race (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Orc, etc.) and a class (Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Priest, etc.).
        Customize characters with unique backgrounds, skills, and traits.

    Attributes:
        Characters have core attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, and Charisma) influencing their abilities and skills.

    Dice System:
        Primarily uses a 20-sided die (d20) for most rolls.
        Skill checks, attacks, and saving throws involve rolling a d20 and adding relevant modifiers.

    Combat:
        Turn-based system with initiative order.
        Characters have a set of actions (Attack, Cast Spell, Dodge, etc.).
        Tactical movement on a grid for precise positioning.

    Magic System:
        Spellcasting classes use a mana system.
        Spell levels and schools (Elemental, Healing, Illusion) provide diversity.

    Quest System:
        Story-driven quests with multiple paths and consequences.
        Dynamic NPCs with individual motivations and relationships.

    Exploration:
        Hex-based exploration for overland travel.
        Random encounter tables for diverse adventures.

    Crafting and Trading:
        Collect resources to craft weapons, armor, and magical items.
        Establish trade routes and economies in player-controlled regions.

    Social Interaction:
        Charisma-based skill checks for negotiations and persuasion.
        Alignment system reflecting character morality and ethics.

    Character Progression:
        Experience points for defeating enemies and completing quests.
        Leveling up unlocks new abilities, spells, and attribute improvements.

Setting:
Eldoria is a vast realm with diverse landscapes, including enchanted forests, ancient ruins, bustling cities, and treacherous wastelands. Elemental forces (Earth, Fire, Water, Air) shape the world, and mythical creatures roam freely.

Game Master Toolkit:

    World-building Guide:
        Tools for creating unique regions, cities, and dungeons.
        Lore templates for NPCs, factions, and historical events.

    Bestiary:
        Extensive catalog of creatures, from common beasts to legendary dragons.
        Encounter tables for different environments.

    Campaign Modules:
        Pre-written campaigns with detailed plots, characters, and maps.
        Modular design for easy integration into custom campaigns.

Community Integration:

    Online Platforms:
        Companion app for character sheets, virtual dice rolling, and online play.
        Community forums for sharing campaigns, house rules, and fan creations.

    Fan Content Creation:
        Open system for player-created content, including races, classes, and campaign modules.
        Regular contests for the best user-generated content.

Epic Realms: Chronicles of Eldoria offers a flexible and immersive tabletop experience, combining classic pen and paper RPG elements with modern mechanics for endless adventures in the magical realm of Eldoria.
------------------------------------------

I guess someone could take this vague and very generic D&D-ish fantasy idea into something with enough work.  I don't know why anyone would bother.  AI isn't ready for prime time.