Dungeons and Dragons in the age of AI

[@hawkeyepearce1066]

Over the last several years I've run VTT and text-chat based D&D campaigns, and for my most recent one, CHAT-GPT has been invaluable. Feeding it with the lore that I'm planning to use has enabled it to create a player-based history of the setting, and a primer for character creation, that I've been able to tailor to my requirements. For text-chat sessions, the AI has been a godsend. Thanks for the great vid, look forward to more to come!

[@DuncsDungeon]

Yeah I love to use chat GPT to build epic descriptions of events I expect to happen in the upcoming session so they are ready to go when my players trigger certain events. Even if I only use 50% of what I pre-generate, it saves me huge amounts of prep time and the players love it! I haven't used it for character creation yet, what a great idea!

[@mitchellschleidt7467]

Keep up the great videos!! Just found your channel recently and am loving what I’ve watched so far

[@omegaminoseer4539]

DM Dunc, what you are describing sounds like an AI Singularity. If it can monitor your voices, gamestate, and interface with reality, it would basically know EVERYTHING about your game and would likely have the skills to write its own narrative based off your choices. That would *be* an AI Dungeon Master, rather than an aid/assistant. I think that the value of a tool which can hear your players' choices and generate a video of the previous session would be exquisite, but then we have to ask, "When does the tool turn off?"

[@DuncsDungeon]

I almost had a section in the video saying this, but I left it out as I couldn't succinctly articulate what I wanted to say. It would be powerful enough to run its own game, and we will see these AI DMs at the same time that this idea is manifested, but it won't be that useful for my table, and I see that more as playing a computer game with friends (which I love to do). But just as AI driving programs (like Tesla's) are struggling with the last 1% of driving skills, I think having a human DM will always make the game just that little bit special and can make decisions and adapt to what the players want to do much more organically (pardon the pun) than what AI will be able to do for at least the next few years. By having it continuously try and help with narrative off to the side, it can step in when and if the DM needs, but not take over the game. As new DMs become more comfortable with telling their own stories, they would likely stop referring to it as often. The risk is that they become reliant on it to tell their story and become just the human narrator of the AIs world.

[@armartin0003]

I can type fast enough that when I'm doing my online games I can easily get a good description, name, and personality traits for that shop keeper and clerk that the players have suddenly taken an unusual interest in. In addition, when the session is over, my prompts and the responses are there for note taking.

[@DuncsDungeon]

I still play F2F and can't hide it well from my players and I find the act of typing and listening is not a skill I've mastered properly at the table and I constantly worry its breaking immersion, so I'm hoping the listening function of AIs comes quickly.

[@trollsmyth]

I'd never considered the personalized summary before. That would be amazing, with or without art.

[@DuncsDungeon]

Everyone is the hero of their own story, and with 4-6 people around the table, cool events by some characters can be overshadowed by epic events by others. It would be a great tool for player satisfaction and retention, and may even reduce or offset "main character syndrome" in some circumstances.

[@WyattTheWise]

UNDERRATED You earned a sub 🙌🙌🙌

[@WyattTheWise]

With notifications on 👀👀👀

[@joeybonitati9852]

Nothing you described in this video is too far off from becoming a reality. You could get a basic dnd helper ai running in a weekend of coding, so I wouldn't be surprised if something like this exists already. I've been using DALL-E 3 for image generation with my dnd group lately, and I've been super impressed. When they release API access to it later this fall, I think it'll make a great tool to do all that image generation on the fly.

[@DuncsDungeon]

I agree. I tried to keep it to things that already exist in some form. I've been annoyed that all the current home assistants (Alexa, Siri and Google) haven't advanced significantly and are still just basic internet and music searches. I'm waiting for the day they "wake up" and become properly useful!

[@madmoore81]

Fantastic video ❤ I look forward to these becoming a reality.

[@nivcnz]

Anything to help me be less bad and more efficient is great! Enjoying the videos.

[@DuncsDungeon]

Yeah I have bookshelves full of lore books, but can I hold it all in my head for easy access when I need it? Hell no!

[@TitanTrev]

I love this idea!!! The expense would be high, but the experience would be amazing

[@DuncsDungeon]

There are a lot of targeted AIs out there right now trying to get your support and the going rate seems to be $8 per month for some psychological reasons. With economies of scale, this would be reasonable, but the biggest cost would be the lights, speakers and screens needed to unlock the AIs full potential. Some people already have the technology already in their gaming room, but I could see the 8 digital screen DM screen being a bit pricey as a kickstarter unless one of the big boys took it on. Maybe Alexa in a couple of years may come with all the needed software programming and accesses your homes smart devices to make this idea a reality.

[@TitanTrev]

Listen, you’re creating great content! I’m in on your channel and can’t wait to watch what you come up with next. Thanks for putting these together! I’d love to see more in this vein.

[@kirkhanson706]

That was really great! My brain has been wired thinking of all the potential with D&D and AI as an assistant. I'm going to show this to my girl friend so she knows I'm not crazy :D

[@DuncsDungeon]

Thanks! I think we are only scratching the surface of what could happen. 2023 is definitely a turning point in human history (for better or worse is still to be determined)

[@darkluster4]

I would love to know how to do this, and would be willing to try it out. (Even though I'm pretty bad a tech.... T_T )

[@magejoshplays]

I've been working on parts of this idea. I'd love to join a team.

[@DuncsDungeon]

I'm not intimately involved with any projects (and dont have the capacity to help) but if you do a google search you should find some teams that are working on these tools. Check out Quest Portal and WyvernLair.com - maybe they're hiring?

[@magejoshplays]

@@DuncsDungeon thanks for the heads up, I'll check those out. Each idea listed is functional now, the trick is synchronization of the components.

[@magejoshplays]

@@DuncsDungeon also, on the note about capacity to help, i'd wager you already have. Imagineering is a vital step in the process of making something cool. This whole video is that.

[@JustForGaming_Alt-kf8lz]

Almost everything you suggest can already be done without AI. For taverns and filling them, there are already thousands of free and paid rolling tables in the form of books, websites, apps, etc. and you never really need to generate NPC stats because most every RPG in existence has some kind of stat default or you can just reuse existing shopkeep blocks from official books. There's already more free to use battlemaps and battlemap generators than literally anyone could use in a lifetime on the internet. Managing stats and abilities can already be done in nearly every VTT on earth with maybe an hour of fiddling at worst, and if your party is tech illiterate having an AI copilot wouldn't help. Switching room lights and a soundtrack can already be done a billion ways from your phone. Having an AI generate responses for your PC would never be fast enough to not slow down a home game, unless your playing PbP, and even if it was there's not much point to playing a character if you're not doing the part where you play the character. If you want player-limited translation or secret convos just pass notes at the table or use the whisper or limited access room features of whatever messenger/VTT you're running in. Special images for ebin natty twennys or end of game AI mementos would lose their value after the first time you get one. You can already view multiple windows in any modern OS without having to feed all your personal data to OpenAI, microshit, or any others. Not to go too hard but it's crazy that you've got a wall full of books behind you yet all of your ideas sound like you've literally never run or played in a campaign in your life.

[@DuncsDungeon]

Everything I said can be done without AI, true, and we already live in a effectively limitless ocean of content. The books behind me have taken me 30 years to collect and I love them, but I can't keep all that information in my head. Its also probably less than 1% of all content created for D&D. AI is going to enhance access to existing information and create new information similar to the way humans do - by absorbing knowledge and transforming it. I deliberately selected features of TTRPGs that already exist and highlighted how Ai will provide simpler and easy access, without fiddling with your phone or stopping the game to sort through 1000s of battlemaps. Every "it already exists" argument you make, in my mind is a lesser version of what can be achieved wtih this imaginary tool. You sound like that 1943 quote from the CEO of IBM saying "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers". The great thing about this tool is it can run off to the side of your game, and if you dont need or want it, then dont use it!

[@BobJoe-i2c]

amazing!

[@israfel070]

This already exists it's called Discord bots

[@joeybonitati9852]

Which bot are you referring to?

[@alyssasowell774]

i would also like to know

[@Goldschlager]

Dunc, you fail your death saves?

[@DuncsDungeon]

Lol no. Just took a break to start a new campaign IRL and figure out the next few videos. Stay tuned!

[@Macaburugaming]

Shut up and take my money ( phillip j fry)

[@idanis5948]

Sadly the problem with ai story telling is it remembering past events. Unlimited context ai will revolutionize story telling

[@oskark312]

like nr 96 mine

[@rabbidninja79]

Better move quick! Ive spoken with another developer whos working on something very similar.

[@DuncsDungeon]

Great! I don't have the time or knowledge to follow through developing anything like this (id prefer to spend my time playing the game) and hoping others can make it happen to make my (and others) life easier!

[@rabbidninja79]

@DuncsDungeon I believe his aim was to create tools for DMs, but the part I was more concerned with is that he was also attempting to program an AI DM. Which I am not a fan of. He mentioned that in plastering it was capable of running a coherent game for 6 hours before it started to go off script.

[@DuncsDungeon]

AI DMs will definitely be a thing but i'm with you, i'd probably pass on playing with one. The AI I've described should be a simpler program as it's more of a "listen then respond, rinse and repeat" model. Most of what it would do would be providing rules and options that immediately help the current situation, so would not need to hold the whole campaign in its memory. If you were to rely on it for the storytelling and plot rather than the embellishments of the current scenario, then you'd run into the problems your friend is having.