Three Reasons to use ChatGPT while DMing a dungeons and dragons game

[@priestesslucy3299]

This sounds like a lot of fun to GM without prepping at all. Just ride the wave and experience the unexpected alongside the players.

[@rockratzero]

I decided to try out chatgpt and just ask it some questions based on a homebrew module that I put together that is already complete. I tried not to give it leading questions, but it was able to converge on almost all the details I had already built into the story, including that the over worked wizard slept in his library, that a torture table would be in the dungeon where the wizard processed creatures for the specimens listed in a book on his desk, etc. Had a fun time making the AI come up with a whole list of books to populate his library with. :)

[@TheAIWizard]

This is one of the great things about this technology, you can have it produce just tons and tons of interesting detail that would be a real slog to come up with yourself but the fact you now have it enriches your world without your also feeling like you "need" your players to hear all those book names.

[@baldr12]

I have created a whole setting with it. My favourite part is the 'bestiary' has 3+ regional variants for each monster (so there is 3 regional variants for Red Dragons, 3 regional variants for Trolls etc). Before a session I copy paste whatever information I think ChatGPT should know beforehand (not too much information though). For example if you copy paste informations about Trolls, Zombies and Necromancers - if you ask ChatGPT ' generate me a random encounter' it will create an encounter following the lore of your setting! I also copy paste information about the party, this way I can ask ChatGPT ' generate an encounter that might be interesting for the Rogue' or ' the players encounter an NPC in the next town that has some information relevant to one of the player's background'

[@TheAIWizard]

That's a great idea, I'll have to give that a try! :)

[@anontheanon8170]

After you videos, I made a compelling backstory with chatGPT for a westmarches campaign. I had some struggles with figuring out how he got his powers, and this was a true boon. Thank you!

[@TheAIWizard]

Nice work! I'm glad my little video was helpful.

[@ultramark2o959]

I'm running a Cypher system TTRPG, and Chat GPT is so useful for creating GM intrusions and Cyphers. I've used it do design clues that, when separate are useless bits of info, but together explain the mystery of how "the apocalypse" of my post-apocalyptic setting happened. And I got it to make poems, songs, and folk lore, written and told from the perspective of certain factions, the AI taking into account the writers beliefs, virtues, goals, lack of knowledge, and social status. I've literally got it to write me a cook book of recipes for medicinal substances for a doctor player in my group. The ingredients, tools, process and outcome all fitting into the setting. I didn't even ask and it gave me the description and common locations of the ingredients!! Thankyou for introducing this tool to me!

[@quillogist2875]

Cypher System is probably my favorite game system. Glad to see another fan.

[@Rantarian]

I've also messed around with it making statblocks. I've found it gives a much better formatted result when you ask for a statblock, rather than a statline, because it doesn't do a new line for each attribute. I've had some exceptional results by training it a bit. Here's an example of the prompts I've used. Prompt 1: "This list is called: "COND_DAMAGE": [list of all damage types and conditions]. Remember this list for the entire chat." Prompt 2: "You are going to be creating unique monsters to be used for Dungeons and Dragons 5e. Draw between four and seven unique results from the "COND_DAMAGE" list, and distribute them between the monster's immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities. When you create a monster, you will include some lore about its normal environment and its behaviour. This lore will be used by the adventurers to help identify it. Immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities should be factored into the lore. You will provide a physical description of the monster. Immunities and resistances should be factored into the physical description. The monster should have at least one attack. When you create a monster, you will also be creating a complete statblock for a Dungeons and Dragons 5e monster. Create the first monster." Prompt 3: "Create Lair and Legendary Actions for the previous monster." Prompt 4: "Create an encounter using the previous monster. Please write a thematic introduction to the location, then write a thematic description of the current situation as it is observed by the adventurers, and finally describe the monster and the overall encounter." This has given me some incredible results, but there are also plenty of failures that don't even provide a complete statblock (despite telling it to do so). ChatGPT also states it uses the recommended method to determine the correct CR, and I'm sure it tries but it doesn't have a real understanding of how powerful the creature actually is, based on the powers it has given. I also think I'll need to find a way to force it to use the normal template format. I've tried giving it a named template but it doesn't seem to respect that.

[@TheAIWizard]

Some great tips thanks! Its really interesting how quickly people are discovering ways to work with these AIs to create the best results.

[@squattingheads]

It will forget requests np matter what you do after some 1000 words

[@UbiDoobyBanooby]

Sounds like it’s reaching a token limit. Just work on one monster at a time then have another chat agent work on other parts. A guy I saw has been using one chat agent to take notes of everything and instructing the first chat agent to always reference the notes and that seems to be working. I’m no expert though. Good luck dude!

[@accessyourinnerlight971]

It's very good at generating conversations on the fly! I've been doing a d&d-like hexcrawl using chatgpt over the past few days and its been fun so far. We've now moved onto a different project considering the current OGL travesty. We are creating a brand new roleplaying game. It's been fun so far but I have to keep reminding it of the rules we have so far. I guess AIs aren't perfect.

[@LumberingTroll]

There are so, so many good RPG systems out there, Gurps is pretty damn good, and have tools to build basically anything you want in an RPG.

[@TheAIWizard]

Yeah I'm keeping my eye on the OGL business, if the leaks are true and Wizards go through with it then its going to undermine a lot of goodwill D&D enjoys. Luckily there are many great RPGs out there and more are always welcome :) Maybe chatGPT can help you write it!

[@UbiDoobyBanooby]

I saw another guy using an additional chat agent to keep notes that the first chat agent can reference and that seemed to do the trick.

[@ThailandDantotherescue]

Bro... chat GPT IS my Dungeon master... I swear to god, I ran through keep on the borderlands under a 5e ruleset just by asking chat GPT... i only wanted to play one character so I gave basic descriptions of the other characters an had AI play them as NPCs... I literally asked all 3 NPCs if we should spare the life of a Kobold, or should we kill it so we didnt regret it later... They suggested we tie it up. Then... I asked it to write the entire adventure in the style of a best selling fantasy author... This genius AI helped me choose the Oath of vengeance as my paladin oath and even common spell choices and asked if I wanted to study different spells when we rested... having it generate names, locations, descriptions, magic items, spells, treasure, wandering monsters... childs play I tells ya!!! It will not only create an NPC but play him for you... give it a year and AI will voice act them out for you... and entire group will be able to sit around a laptop and be amazed!

[@jimstein621]

i love how the bandits room in the mansion has a painting of a fire place right above the fire place. great concept and i will keep that in mind in case i have my own fireplace someday

[@PilotSun-rg9bh]

To be honest, I find these videos to be very helpful. I really hope that you do another making an adventure tutorial with AI. It’s such a fun experience homebrewing with this tool. Great work as always. Look forward to the next video.

[@Kheldul]

I was considering this. I have an extensive chat with lots of NPCs, locations, etc. It will sometimes bring in interesting linkages. But more often than that - much much more often - it will reference things incorrectly. It will reuse NPC names for completely different people. I do agree it could be compelling for special descriptions or creations on the fly. I’m not sure that it would be better than some already available. It usually takes a bit of iteration to get what you want and that’s not something on the fly.

[@LumberingTroll]

I found that if you tell CGPT that it made a mistake and how it did so, it will correct it and then keep that info correct in the future, CGPT is not an "AI" it's a language model, so you need to correct it fromt ime to time.

[@TheAIWizard]

Yeah, it is very possible for it to get confused or go off on strange tangents. Early days I suppose, it does help to correct it when this happens as Sean points out.

[@Kheldul]

All true. It is just not something you can ask for and trust to use on the fly in front of players.

[@UbiDoobyBanooby]

I’ve seen luck with using a second agent to keep notes from the first agent then instructing the first agent to always reference the notes.

[@age-of-adventure]

Great stuff! Your very own GM PA

[@georgelaiacona111]

This is excellent. Liked and Subscribed. Thank you.

[@balthizarlucienclan]

One issue I constantly have with ChatGPT is the one hour timeout. It’s quite frustrating lol

[@TheAIWizard]

Yeah, as much as I'm enjoying the free access it clearly needs more resources for the number of people wanting to use it.

[@balthizarlucienclan]

@@TheAIWizard I would love to take the api and train a copy of gpt for this type usage. It has been immensely helpful.

[@nickrafuse984]

I've been working with GPT for a few months now on my own campaign setting. Right now, I'm using it too: create lore and backstore, build out cities and towns with monumental levels of detail (charts of occupations, government, architecture), I've used it to build out all the regions of my world, the cultures and histories. I'm also putting GPT4 to the test building out my first campaign arc in this world, should be a solid 6-8 session level 1-4 thing. It's been doing great, creating entire sessions of content at a time, and always easy to drill into specific phases or encounters for more info. However... the one place it fails is on remembering details long term. when world-building, it would get through a few regions then try to tie it into something I had already made, only to find that GPT was unable to accurately reference past material. Is this something you've been able to solve? I've watched a few videos on this, with some very advanced prompts, and I believe part of the solution may be to build different chats and prompts for different purposes. eg. one for encounters, one for NPCs, one for Villains and enemies, and one for places and locations.

[@zacharyharwell351]

This sounds like an absolute game changer (literally) for West Marches style games

[@RachelNitsche]

Another great video. Love it. Thank you😁

[@HoobtheNoob]

I used chat gpt extensively in my last one shot - It's great for ideas and for coming up with vast amounts of objects or magic item ideas... NPC names etc. Less so narrative stuff as after a while you start to se how it describes things and begins to repeat self. Every tree is "a giant sentinal". really brilliant though and I plan on using it for some world building.

[@kenbaker3260]

Definitely gonna have this open during my game now, I've just paid for the pro version, well worth it.

[@stevekirkby6570]

Well AIWizard ... I have just fed act 2 of my homebrew into ChatGPT and it took it forward ... more or less verbatim from my plans :) Bloody Hell. It even generated dialogue for me that was spot on. I am retiring as a DM. LOL. Just joking. What an amazing tool. But scary too. I will be using in future to flesh out ideas and highlight conflicts and misunderstandings.

[@TheAIWizard]

Yep even now the capability is a game changer for DMs, and yeah where this will be in a few years is a little crazy. But I think for now at least we DMs are still going to be running the show, we'll just be getting a super capable assistant who never complains or tries to take over... hopefully :P

[@momqabt]

If I'dve had this when I was preparing for my HEAVILY MODED CoS set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe my job would've been SO FUCKING EASY😳🤣

[@ncvidman]

Love the video! Are you planning to make videos on how you made the pictures you show in the video? It would be great to be able to generate pictures on the fly as well.

[@TheAIWizard]

I am, generating images on the fly is certainly possible although to get results like this in some cases took quite a long time generating images till I got one I liked then in some cases running that image through img-img and inpainting to get it right. But for simple stuff like a image of a new NPC you just generated its very doable. Got a few videos on the topic of image generation in the works so watch this space :)

[@mattmastin]

This is great! I've tried several times (with varying degrees of success) to play D&D with my kids and I'm really hoping adding chatgpt as a tool will help us be more successful. Would you mind sharing some of the prompts you used to generate the images from the video?

[@TheAIWizard]

Yeah, I have them all recorded. The plan had been to include them in as little text overlays in the video but the amount of time it would have taken put me off in the end. But I think I'll take a few of my favourites and cover them in a separate video. There is some interesting variety between simple and quickly made txt to img images and more involved img-img and inpainted images. Really happy with the results so would be nice to talk about it more in another video :)

[@mattmastin]

@@TheAIWizard Great, can't wait to see how you're approaching the image prompts! I've been tinkering around as well and found a cool trick that sort of plays gpt and stable diffusion off each other. Chatgpt had generated a fork in a forest road, so I asked stable diffusion to illustrate the scene. It added a little creek down one of the roads (that did not appear in the prompt or the output of gpt... just randomness), so I went back to chatgpt and said something like "we'd like to explore the creek down the left fork, please describe it in more detail" and it happily went with it (as it does). This struck me as a cool direction for more tinkering and thought you mind find it interesting.

[@zippity61]

Really fun example!

[@inversealien]

fantastic, you get it... subscribed :)

[@adruk5587]

Outstanding videos 🎉

[@TheAIWizard]

Thanks!

[@Ualaa]

So far my interest in AI for RPGs has been Midjourney for images and ChatGPT as a DM's assistant. Our group plays Pathfinder, which is similar to DnD. Thanks for doing these videos.

[@Lunerd1427]

I was messing with it to convert dnd classes with other systems to give a similar effect like the echo knight using the savage worlds system

[@TheAIWizard]

Good call, I'm going to bump up my video investigating its knowledge and ability with other systems so I'm glad to hear others are having success with this!

[@kathryngordon5115]

I would love to hear how it can help AFTER the session is over.

[@motionboy356]

It would be awesome to solo play Gamma World with ChatGPT. I’m currently trying to find out how to do just that with only an iPad.

[@Davefacestation]

The issue with this is the NPCs generated share very very common traits. It overuses words like slender and piercing. It makes NPCs far too similar.

[@TheAIWizard]

True, but that is in part because I generated them together without giving much feedback or detail to the request. If I have added make them unique or different or a man, etc then the result would have been more varied. What we're getting here is the same NPC basically generated in two different flavours.

[@Fo0tie]

It would be nice to include the knowledge of DnD rulebooks and modules for reference.

[@keithanderson9103]

I see others have already mentioned other system. I wonder if you can train it to do conversions ? e.g. in the system "Basic Fantasy RPG" the stats and abilities for a skelton are this, for D&D its this. Then you could ask it to conert on the fly ?

[@rentacowisgoogle]

Once you can get it going and spit out the beginning of a story, I get really good results with these prompts: "Present [A NUMBER OF] compelling options for me to consider about what I might choose to do next." Then you just need to choose one (or decide on something else, can be completely unexpected.) And prompt it with something like: "I pick Option [OPTION]. Describe in great detail what happens next. Include concrete details about things like [YOU MUST GIVE IT SOMETHING TO WORK WITH HERE] but include these details in interesting and unexpected ways. Also provide commentary at the end of paragraphs. Respond with absolute maximum verbosity." There are no rules, really, when you use this method, not even a rule that says you can't make up rules. Go nuts modifying the prompts or breaking the pattern with new themes. The more you give it to work with, the better it will perform.

[@TheAIWizard]

"Respond with absolute maximum verbosity" love it! Yes I've noticed how the more explicit you are with your insistence on detail the better the results. I'll definitely be using that turn of phrase in my prompts :)

[@silverhurst7241]

I use the prompt "make the description more flowery" or such to good result.

[@HediSalm]

this is magic!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TY!!!

[@TheAIWizard]

You're welcome :)

[@brandomarlin1981]

amazin!

[@adambysko1787]

chat site seems to be getting so much traffic it's crashing at the moment

[@TheOnlySheet]

It's NuTz!!

[@wrlrdqueek]

So does it only know the 5e Srd? Like, if I asked for Pathfinder 1e stats, would it be able to do the same stuff? What about completely different systems like Traveller or GURPS?

[@seanedwards5495]

Can chatgpt generate relevant sandbox campaign content for specific existing D&D worlds such as Greyhawk?

[@TheAIWizard]

Good question, I'll add that to my list of things to investigate :)

[@jasonkemp4571]

chatGPT seems to be unavailable at the moment. Do you have any suggestions of alternative software that does the same thing?

[@TheAIWizard]

You could look at character.ai I've not had the time to play with it yet but it proports to do a similar thing. I'll try and make the time to investigate this question more though because chatGPT continues to get hammered.

[@bitspersecond2006]

Do you tell your players your using it, or do you keep the Wizard firmly hidden behind the curtain? 🙂

[@YTAliasJoeCool]

or you can let just play chatGPT as DM. I did that and was the player.

[@johncox3541]

Where do you get your pictures?

[@TheAIWizard]

They're all generated with stable diffusion, which is an image generating AI you can run locally. I'll be doing a video on the specifics soon but the process is basically the same as the one I used to generate battlemaps using it which there is a video on the channel covering.

[@scottgibson755]

How does ChatGPT work with older editions of D&D, like 3.5?

[@TheAIWizard]

Good question, not sure I'll check it out :)

[@LumberingTroll]

I really like ChatGPT but I've run into an issue where it wont let you do any more prompts in an hour, but I can't find anywhere that says how many prompts you can do in an hour. This is the only thing keeping me from using it more.

[@TheAIWizard]

Yes it's something they seem to have recently added, I suspect because it getting used so much at the moment. Its a shame, I guess we'll have to see how it develops, I really REALLY want and open source local version of this but not sure how likely that is in the short term.

[@sanseverything900]

From what I've gathered it had something to do with a "token" system and that each prompt you submit uses up a certain amount of tokens. Now here is a really important part: when you submit a prompt you are submitting the *entire* thread, not just that single prompt. GPT processes the entire thread and the entire thing uses up even more tokens. Apparently it's good pravtice to get a summary of your entire work so far, create a new thread and cut and paste the summary so GPT has some context.

[@TheAIWizard]

@@sanseverything900 This is some good insight. I wondered if that was what it was doing based on the way the older GPT3 playground interface worked. It does mean those token counts are going to go way way up over time if not managed. Good tip.

[@rockratzero]

​@@sanseverything900 do you mean the entire conversation is essentially resubmitted each time? So I definitely need copy/paste work to keep making progress

[@sanseverything900]

@@rockratzero That's what I heard from others more knowledgeable about chatgpt. The longer the session/conversation the faster you will hit the hourly limit.I'm actually glad I saved summaries of some of my sessions because just the other day openAI made a lot of my past conversations unavailable to me!

[@captainnolan5062]

How about a video showing novices how to get started using chatGPT?

[@TheAIWizard]

Check out the first video in my writing an adventure with chatGPT which might help, but really its just a case of talking to it like its a person for the most part.

[@Renseru]

I have found that I can give it so much data that it forgets things.

[@TheAIWizard]

Yes it's not perfect, amazing! but no perfect. I'm expecting it to improve rapidly though.

[@rentacowisgoogle]

Use confabulate instead of generate so that the model can "reach" deeper down into the 'ole memory banks. Confabulate is more directly tied to the concept of "pulling things out of your a**", than generate.

[@TheAIWizard]

Interesting tip, I'll definitely give that a go thanks!

[@warmage24]

Can you use it for other rpg games besides Dungeons & Dragons

[@TheAIWizard]

You can although how much it's going to know about any given system will vary. I'm planning to do a video on this at some point so if there is any systems you're particularly interested in let me know. D&D is obviously the biggest so there is tons written about it much of which, including the SRD rules, is public domain or open source so could be in chatGPTs training set which helps... All very relevant at the moment with the OGL business going on.

[@warmage24]

Star Wars of Starfinder

[@jasonkemp4571]

I'd love to see what it can do with Savage Worlds.

[@Brainwashed101]

Like centaur chess, but DnD!

[@dominicgriffin5192]

Can you provide a link?

[@TheAIWizard]

To chatGPT? it's chat.openai.com/chat

[@GarrethandPipa]

well I thought that gptchat was pretty useless. I spent about 10 hours on this and that before making that decision but throw some D&D questions so maybe not as shitty as originally believed Generate me a D&D dungeon represent this dungeon with ascii art map generate the treasure for defeating these monsters

[@user-pc5ww8fh6d]

I have seen the measure of AI in wargames, and it's lacking. But can a chat AI simulate a DM? Well, it seems chat AIs are a different beast from game AIs. I think it would be awesome if the next truly impressive development in role gaming was the elimination of human DMs. No more need to write or make videos on how to be a better DM. And frankly I have seen human DMs that suck.

[@squattingheads]

The ai has a rather short memory actually

[@TheAIWizard]

Yeah I'm pretty sure it's gotten worse in this respect. I suspect they've been messing around with it to reduce the compute load. I'm sure this is an area we'll see considerable improvement in the near future.

[@phloog]

As more machines do physical work, we become weaker. As our phones replace the need for memory, our memories and attention spans waste away. Hey! Let’s do the same thing with our imaginations and ability to improvise on our feet!!!

[@TheAIWizard]

Time passes and humans invent new ways to enhance their natural abilities. It has always been thus.

[@99Michaelthom]

I think the fun of GMing is prepping. And if you've got a lot of experience as a GM, you can come up with worldbuilding on the fly. No Chatbots for my games. The fun of being a GM is being creative yourself, not letting something else do it. My ideas are always better than what an AI can do.

[@TheAIWizard]

For my part GMing has always been a collaborative exercise, with the players first and foremost obviously, but also with the creators of the game system, the setting, adventure materials I may be using, or simply borrowing from, books, tv shows, games and films that I'm drawing inspiration from at the time. And so on. My point is that AI is just another agent in that collaboration, a little lower down the agency ladder than a my human players, but a bit further up than predetermined printed material. Its a tool that I can use to supplement and enhance my creativity, a resource to draw upon for ideas and agent to help me create content faster than I could have done alone. I understand your position, but I think you're mischaracterising what AI is, chatbots are simple programs that just provide formulaic preprogramed responses. Large language models like ChatGPT are something very different, despite many people still referring to them as Chatbots. In the end it doesn't really matter, its a personal choice and as with so much in our wonderful hobby there is not right or wrong answer. To each their own, but I would caution against assumptions when it comes to the emerging technology of AI.

[@dosuserx]

its not magic. the phrases being harvested, mixed and matched and and fed to you as a response are stolen. some human wrote these phrases, they were harvested by a bot with no legal authority or permission to use those written phrases. you could just steal a bunch of licensed d&d content online, but then you would lack the feeling that you "made it yourself" which you didn't. you asked the bot for something and it stole it for you. it might be a good tool for thi, but that doesn't make it ok.

[@TheAIWizard]

This really is not how it works, at least no more so than saying a human who reads a bunch of fantasy and then write some himself can be said to have just remixed what he read. If you can find any substantive chunk of AI generated content that replicates a copyrighted work, or even a public domain bit of text (That isn't obviously intentionally doing it like quoting something or being asked to reproduce it) then we can talk. People have run AI content through plagiarism checkers and they come up clean because the nature of the technology is that they aren't just copy pasting stuff, if they were it wouldn't be impressing anyone. There are valid concerns over what AI is going to mean for people and the ethics of how you train them, but its not as simple as training an AI on a piece of work is theft. Used properly this technology has the potential to radically improve the world. We need to be careful about knee jerk reaction against it.

[@billcedarheath387]

I was intrigued by your ChatGPT videos and went off to give it a look and maybe even a try. That is right up to the moment it asked for my phone number.

[@LumberingTroll]

we get it, you dont like it, stop posting this same message in every video and move on.

[@billcedarheath387]

@@LumberingTroll I think you're mistaken. This is the first time I commented. Get your facts right. Also to clarify, I like the AI video and the concept of using ChatGPT just fine. It's the needless personal info gathering of ChatGPT I didn't care for.

[@TheAIWizard]

Yeah I don't know why they want a phone number, it not the most intrusive account process but I can understand people getting annoyed at it. I'm really hoping we get an opensource model for text generation like this that we can run locally similar to Stable Diffusion for images. I much prefer users having control over this stuff rather than being reliant on distant faceless organisations.

[@billcedarheath387]

@@TheAIWizard I'm looking forward to seeing more "acts" to the adventure you've kicked off. You've got a some fresh content going with this AI. I've not seen it done before. I'm curious if it knows other rules and how it also could fit into a more game agnostic approach. Especially when you consider how the leaked update to the D&D OGL is burning up the landscape.

[@brandonedwards1181]

chatgpt will use bandits 99% of the time and goblins 1% of the time unless you prompt something different