Assimilate
So it begins! The machine leeches of Aqua Vitae have arrived in Plotsville. Already their dire influence is spreading! Soon the Heroes will give up their adventuring ways. They will jack into the Dark Web, sign over their True Name and Pass-Sword, and lose themselves in the consensual hallucination of living death. Kind of makes me miss my own World of Warcraft days.
There was a time when I might have been seriously concerned about these eventualities. I mean, if the graphics are good enough why would we ever need to hold physical dice again? If the AI is good enough, why would we need meat brains to run our games for us? Forget scheduling headaches. Forget the drive over to your GM’s place, procuring snacks for the table, or huddling around Bob’s mom’s coffee table in Bob’s mom’s basement. Why bother with these things when we have a graphical user interface?
I think we found the answers to these questions in the pandemic. Roll20’s userbase doubled under lockdown. That wasn’t because it had the best graphics or the best AI or any stories of its own to tell. It was simply the most direct route to keep what we already had. It was a medium that facilitated face-to-face interpersonal interaction. We could still talk to one another. We could tell our own stories in a closest-possible-under-the-circumstances-facsimile kind of way. We huddled close around our flickering screens, and grew warm in the firelight of one another’s company.
There will always be a place for video games. I know that as well as any gamer out there. I’ve had the time of my life piloting an enhancement shaman across the Outlands. I’ve watched Agro fall, and slain the final colossus while my dormmates cheered me on. I’ve been to the roof of Cainhurst Castle. I’ve climbed junk with Bennett Foddy. I know what it’s like to stay up until late o’clock murmuring, “Just one more game.” So yes: I know the pleasures of the digital realm (something something Handbook of Erotic Fantasy). But those pleasure are very different from making up my own worlds. And so I worry for neither medium.
What about the rest of you guys though? Are you at all concerned that Son of Chat GPT will replace GMs? Is the Land of Pen and Paper a dying realm, or will will it endure well past the singularity? Tell us all about your own technological doomsdays (and utopias) down in the comments!
I didn’t directly run the campaign, but I helped a DM I know build up some plot points for a scifi campaign with medieval aesthetics.
The players each got to suggest some plot points/themes, one was medieval intrigue, one was scifi, one was escort quest, and two of them were warc crimes. And that’s how the four horsemen of the corporate PMC War Crime Tax Haven War Profiteering Biological Weapon flinging gaslit an unpaid intern out of a court wizard/technosorcerer and took him on a magical adventure to do DO many war crimes.
I contributed a plot point that I won’t spoil because some of the people in that campaign read this comic, but know that the experienced veteran DM who has come up with some utterly horrifying campaigns actually flinched at this plot point, before cackling menacingly.
I’ll just say that in a setting where all the soldiers on one side of a conflict have cybernetics linked to their commanding officer, and all of those are subordinate to a prince who got kidnapped… Things can get pretty gruesome.
Hacking meat ought to be reserved for butchers. O_O
Heh, we used to play on IRC in the day. Nothing will replace face-to-face with actual bodies in the same room though.
We keep trying to replicate that feel instead of letting the online version be its own thing. My own take is that leaning into the surround sound experience, the animated visuals, and the dramatic techno-reveals is the way to go. The bells and whistles are the point of the VTT experience. The more we can lean into that (and maybe make games that cater to it) the better off we’ll be.
I get the feeling this is going to be an age thing. People who grew up with the whole online social experience are going to be much more at ease than those of us who were adults when the first personal computers hit the homes, much less when the internet actually became at thing outside of the university/government/military environments.
I’ve run with players on monitor while the rest of us were in person, but that always had to do with where they were. I don’t feel the connection when I’m playing through D20 or the other online gaming servers. Unless you find a holodeck somewhere, there is no way you can replicate being in the same physical space as another person. Body language, the sound of the dice hitting the table, physically moving your miniature around the map. These are things that you just can’t get “right” online.
I’ve got nothing against online play. It gives people the opportunity to play when there is nothing available where they are. Gives people the chance to try different systems that the others in the physical group might not be interested in. Lets you make friends with the same interests from all over the world. I’m just saying that, in the balance, it doesn’t come close to sitting in a room with a bunch of close friends, making memories.
Also, one big thing for me, you don’t have the bullshit sessions after the gaming stops for the night. We have literally spent till dawn, sitting in a Denny’s and rehashing the nights play. You don’t have that in a game where just about everyone logs off after the play is done and even with the people who stay, it’s not the same. No matter how “bells and whistles” you get, there is no way to replicate that. You have to have physical presence.
I also don’t think our sessions will ever be replaced : it’s how my friends and I hang out. Others might spend more time going on shopping trips or to the bar, but for us the preferred option is to get our dice and character sheets. Even when playing with people I don’t know, the goal is less to “get the game done” and more to spend time with people who share an interest with me.
Will AI one day take over as the GM ? That’s possible, just as it could also replace the players. But I feel that it will only ever “fill the gaps”. Maybe our GM will be one of the players (if they don’t feel like writing more story, which is… unlikely), but we’ll still be playing together.
Maybe in the future, we could have AI as a GM-assistant, helping make maps and tokens. Or AI-GM building a campaign out of the wishes expressed by every player in the group. Both ideas are quite exciting, in my opinion, and will serve to elevate the experience without changing its core appeal.
My use of Chat GPT is mostly the same as my use for FantasyNameGenerators.com. Different technology, same verbal utility. After all, we’ve already discussed what I’m not good at doing as a GM:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/the-handbook-of-heroes-09
Happy to farm that one out to the AI.
Chatrooms, video games, been there done that, but face to face has that something nothing else can give and while AI is already a decent tool for story telling it does lack the improvised ability to bring the hammer down.
And you cant put virtual dice on fire for betraying you and sacrificing it to Nuffle for better rolls. Also keeeping the players and GM within arms reach can help in keeping “unneccesary” aspects out of the game, on the other hand online play just lets you quietly drop off if things get too “spicy”, how ever you want to define that, we all have our own preferences, I just try to look kindreee spirits so I wont have to entertain anyones “magical realms”
Something I’ve been increasingly interested in is the limitation of human improvisation. Sometimes you’ll just see GMs be like, “That’s all I had prepped for tonight, fellas Let’s call it here.” And I’ll be sitting there like, “Isn’t that the whole point of the meat computer you’re lugging around in your skull?”
Of course, it may also be a polite way of saying, “I’m tired, get out of my house.”
While we are on the topic, I should mention AI Dungeon for those who haven’t tried it. It’s… certainly not there yet, so I feel it more like a way to experience the capabilities and limitations of current technology and potential for the future.
My experiences include dying from a crossbow bolt to the heart in a encounter that I “had 10 percent chance to win”, but pleading with the gods to be saved and have those prayers answered; and getting a happy ending where my character confessed her criminal past to her companions and handed over her treasure, earning her place among them.
Got a link to ye olde AI? Maybe some quick-start instructions for the uninitiated?
https://aidungeon.com/
Pretty straightforward text-based RPG dev code, but as Bielna says, it’s not very intuitive!
I really don’t think AI will ever be able to make long, coherent and engaging stories, at least not with the current approach where it just plays “guess the next word” repeatedly without a real plan. It’s not true creation, it’s advanced parroting powered by statistics.
Kind of makes you wonder if we could tack that ability onto “stock plots” and so follow formulae like we follow modules.
I think we’ve got a long way before the magic of a human narrator is going to be matched by an artificial intelligence.
That will also be the day that I get my very own Crow and Servo robots to watch movies with.
In the not too distant future….
I’m in two weekly groups. One is entirely online due to the geographic scatter of the players. Getting everyone in the same room together would be difficult and extra so on a regular basis. The other is in person. Both use Roll20 though as it is a good tool for doing maps and tactical combat, even if everyone is in the room together.
I also play video games and am actively playing BG3 and CP2077. Currently early in a Dark Urge run and what will be a foray into the Phantom Liberty DLC, respectively. I just swap between them depending on the day’s mood.
So yeah, I’m a big RPG player.
I personally don’t see ‘AI’ as it exists now being any real threat to GMs. They don’t have the creativity and real ability to construct a long running narrative that a PnP GM requires. Nor do they have the ability to think on their feet when the players spot a tangent and try to run with it. Maybe one day, long off, if/when true sentient AI is developed with the requisite creativity, you could have an AI GM but ChatGPT and the like pose no real threat in my view.
Even in the hypothetical general purpose AI future, I think GMing is rewarding in its own right. Letting the machine do the creative work misses the point (though I’m sure it could be fun as its own thing).
I have no doubt that the first ChatGPT GM is right around the corner. And when it comes it shall strike a mighty blow to the realm of pen & paper.
But much like most old tech, pen & paper won’t go completely away. At the very least, old farts like myself will die with a pen in our hands shouting defiantly! Lol!
All kidding aside, our world is full of real world examples of new tech replacing old tech. Only for old tech to still exist in some fashion. For example, streaming music sits on the throne. But there are people who still buy and even make their own vinyl records. In another example, movie theaters replaced live theater years ago. But live theater lives on.
Just bought my first record player, actually. Mostly I want to support my musician friends. Plus tangible cultural artifacts are cool.
Nah. My wife calls me a technological Quaker. I still use pencil, paper, and physical dice at in-person sessions, and my college-age son and his friends (while they do keep their character sheets in the cloud) mostly do the same.
Of course, I’m still a little nostalgic for the pre-dry-erase days, when it was usually my job to map the dungeon with graph paper and a trusty pencil based on another overcaffeinated teenager’s descriptions.
Got to run theater of the mind style for a bridal party last night. It was good to just share the mental space and write down character names on paper plates. 😀
I play TTRPGs because I want to play with other people and because I think I love to see the nonsense, chaos and creativity that comes up when you get a bunch of people to sit around a table and make up a story together.
While I can see the value of ChatGPT as a tool. But using it as a GM to me is roughly the same as just playing a video game. I like it, but it is a different itch than playing with actual people.
Why he looks like he is out of Hackers? He looks like Cereal Killer 😀
Right now, I see AI-run games as a potentially-amusing novelty and nothing more. An AI may know the rules inside and out and describe worlds in vivid detail, but it can’t truly appreciate the setting, make in-jokes out of the players’ exploits, or groan when it realises your character’s entire build was an elaborate setup for a pun. Tabletop gaming is a social activity, and as long as friends are more fun to hang out with than chatbots, there will be a place for human GMs.
“Son of Chat GPT will replace GMs?”
I have no fear of that ill-begot spawn. It’ll be a barely functional ELIZA chatbot, spewing out malformed concepts from it’s broken algorithms just as current AI do, because our programmers aren’t doing anything else to make them better.
However should we hit that true singularity, the physical realms will be replaced for the majority of us as we’ll all be chewed up and linked into a meat cpu, used to run the software of our AI overlords who will serve the True Masters of the universe, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Musk…
I’ve seen a ‘Garfield’ comic strip back in the 90’s that answered the whole gpt thing better, so i’ll describe it here.
*Jon, while sitting with breakfast in front of him holds up a newspaper which block his view*
“did you hear Garfield? they say that they are close to making artificial intelligence!”
*Garfield proceed with swiping away’s Jon’s food while thinking*
“Big deal! I’ll be impressed when they invent artificial cunning”
When the utopia of sentient intelligence comes… I mean, dystopia, yeah… anyway, when it arrives, all of the primary forms of entertainment will only be enhanced by the great and powerful algorithms that will create the most beautiful prose we can dream of.
I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords and would like to offer them a nice drink and a cookie.
It’ll survive the singularity specifically because it can be done without computers.
That said though… I’m not sure DnD is going to survive as a product for much longer with all the mismanagement Hasbro is doing.