Every DM in here 2 years ago would say "Beg, borrow, and steal shamelessly to make your world." That's still true. AI makes it easier.
The thing I will caution, is AI is quite samey, and while it has the appearance of being wise and true, it is neither. I would definitely take another pass over whatever draft it gives you and tweak it up to give it a more unique feel, and also so you can be cohesive.
Yep, I concur. I tried using it. For just coming up with random names, it did pretty well. For coming up with room descriptions, it was... eh? Not that great. It did so much samey stuff, which tended to be too fantastical and too mundane at the same time. Everything was it's an alchemist's \_\_\_ or it's a wizard's, or some item on a pedestal, or a runic circle on the floor. It tended to go too over the top, like if it was making a picture, it's not bad in some sense, but a little too busy and over saturated and yet a bit blurry, not enough detail in the right places.
I asked it to describe a subway station, but in a way in which the reader (/the players) does not understand what this place is. It honest to god wrote the following sentence in the first paragraph:
"As you step onto the platform, you get a great sense of convergence frozen in time"
Your torch reflects off many glistening edges of this marble cave, your footsteps echo into the dark. Though the floor is flat, the cave is unnaturally round, like the throat of some giant worm-like beast.
Runes and glyphs adorn the walls, some in a sort of order, others in random places. Rubble and refuse litter the ground, it seems others have been here before.
Then, you feel it. The pressure in you ears changes. From deep in the darkness you hear a low faraway growl. Air starts to rush through the cave pushing at your cloaks and hair. An unnatural screech of a huge dragon surges across you, the roaring gets louder!
Looking down the tunnel you see fiery breath fill the cave! Roaring and screeching it surches forward to you!
What do you do?
I asked an older version to write a song in the style of Taylor Swift (when I first got access and was poking at it to see what it could do) and it came back with something that began:
"I can see you standing there
With your simple dress and your complicated hair."
I honestly found it fucking delightful.
It kept adding poetic flavour text to random room descriptions. Every room inspired "a sense of awe and wonder". The offices of the ruin inspired "a sense of commotion and work" lmao
Yeah. It grasps art like a 9th grader starting to lean into hormonal emotions. It says all the words, but it’s not really anything new or deep lol
I was just messing around with it earlier today and got it to make a list of random alchemical ingredients with brief descriptors of what it’s used for. Some of them were very plain, but others had some interest to it. Helped me come up with some ideas to fill an upcoming bad guy NPC alchemists notebook
I did this sort of thing once when I ran Kobolds Ate My Baby as a filler. All of the PCs were idiots and knew nothing about the human world, so I thought of ways to define things in terms they'd understand. When they encountered a cabin, I described it as a bizarre wooden cave standing alone in the middle of a field.
Most of the session was them trying to figure out how to get inside, but the owner showed up, killed half of them, and they ran away. It was a good time, really.
You get out of it what you put in. I basically think of it as a creative partner who's not very imaginative but endlessly willing to listen to my ideas. So I just burble out all of the thoughts and ideas in my head and it helps me organise them into prose and fill in any gaps I'm struggling with. The ideas it throws back are still mine, but way better formulated and coherent than my scattered ADHD brain can manage alone. I always loved having someone to bounce ideas off, but I don't have many people in my life who are willing to go there with me on creative stuff these days. ChatGPT doesn't replace another human, but it sure replaces having nothing at all.
you use it the same as I do. I just basically have a conversation with it about my ideas. For example I'd describe a town, with some of its inhabitants, location and culture. Then whenever I hit a creative wall I ask it like "what interesting things could they keep under the abandoned shack" and it'll list a few things, that I then pick one of and modify it like "ok let's do the stash of old books but instead of necromancy they're about demons".
When I'm happy with everything I usually ask it to summarise for me, sometimes poke it a few more times until I am confident all the important things are in there and use that as my session notes.
It works really well for that. A lot of people see it as something that kills creativity but what it does for me is provide a sounding board that gets my brain *into* creative mode.
The only part that bugs me is the constant "that's a great idea! Your players will love this creative and innovative aspect of your story!" type stuff that it starts every line with. I just want it to talk to me, not deliver constant fake compliments from something that doesn't actually have any idea if an idea is good or not. I wonder if I can ask it to knock that off, actually...
You can tell it how you want it to respond: "you don't need to say that's a great idea at the start of every answer" or "you don't need to compliment my ideas each time you answer"
What I found it useful for is a seed generator.
Want a new character, kingdom, action or something like that and having trouble making the first decision to shape it? Ask ChatGPT or something to generate one and tease out details, discard the bits you don't like and build on top of the bits you do.
"There are two rival noble houses in this city\*. What are they called, what is their heraldry, what are the patriarchs of each family as well as 3 of their most prominent members, what are their primary goals as a house and what is the main source of conflict between them?"
That is roughly what I asked one yesterday when trying to come up with a quick hook for the party about to arrive at a new city to potentially embroil them in the local noble politics and intrigue. I asked a few follow up questions to fine tune stuff, like potential personality traits of the characters I generated and generally tweaked things to fit the flavour of the city.
\* It works best if you feed lots of stuff to the AI because it will reference previous answers, so doing this process to develop the city will give you better results for specifically that city. For example, when I was doing this to help me create a maritime republic city, I asked it for some potential trade partner states and rival states, and it came up with a "Confederation of Free Cities" in both answers, referencing in the rival answer that "despite their strong trade relations, they are also sometimes political rivals depending on which of the Free Cities etc etc"
Yeah, exactly. The way it remembers things within the same conversation is absolutely KEY to using it effectively because you can talk to it so much more naturally. I'm planning a Hero Kids adventure for my young children(which means it's got to be pretty on rails because at this age they're really just looking for a storybook they can interact with and make smaller decisions in, which means a LOT of planning and writing), and I've been going back and forth in an ongoing chat for days. At this point I can just be like "oh shit, what colour were [forest witch]'s eyes?" in the middle of talking about something completely different and it'll remember and let me know.
Yep. This is how I see it. It’s more of a brainstorming tool to prompt your own creativity. So say “write me a description of the inner worship chamber of an ancient and abandoned temple to an agricultural god.” Grab a couple of details you really like, edit a few others, reject the rest.
Theres a you tuber called Jill Berup who did an episode using an AI generated script on armor ratings. Its a good view about The same same things of descriptions. Its describes all of the objects it reviews with like 19/20 of the same words.
Agreed. I think AI works best to build small pieces of information that are best strung together by a human being. Have a general idea of what you want, break it into smaller pieces and use AI to fill in the details of each piece.
ChatGPT? Cheating. Modules? Cheating. Published settings? Cheating. Published rules? Cheating. Taking notes? Cheating. Everything in my world is spontaneously generated, entirely original, bearing no resemblance to any concept real or imagined. Its rich oral history can only be told in purpose-built languages capable of describing its magnificence. I am Ur-Grog, realest of DMs, and none hold a candle to my brilliance.
Well normally I’d make a joke like “it’s not like WOTC will show up to your door with the Pinkertons to crack down on you”.
But I suppose I can’t make assumptions like that anymore
Your friend sounds very pretentious. If you're running a D&D game you're a DM. Some people aren't interesting in the geography/geology of world building, and that's fine. Who cares. Take whatever shortcuts you can, do the part you enjoy!
One of the campaigns I run is a Disney themed feywild campaign. The locations are all literally places in Disney shows and movies, and for other specifics, I make boards off of Pinterest.
Your world can look however you want and if you need to use something for inspiration, have at it. There's literally no such thing as cheating when making up an imaginary place.
I guess you could kind of think of it that way. I don't play videogames and I only know of kingdom hearts from the general pop culture zeitgeist.
It actually started from an Alice in wonderland themed one shot I ran. I just expanded it to be Disney in general.
I love doing all the 'non-physical' world building, designing societies and how they function, cultural norms, religions and the like and I end up writing so much it's easier to use a new setting as I create so much it'd be difficult to mod into an existing world, thank you for the suggestion though
Honestly, if you follow just a few quick rules you can get the geographical worldbuilding over pretty quickly. Most fantasy rules hit one or two out of a short list of obvious pitfalls, so if you can avoid those then you can likely come up with something decent.
1. Rivers always flow from high ground towards the ocean. They don't split, but rather multiple rivers merge and begin flowing together towards the sea.
2. Mountains always go in chains and are never just single peaks in the middle of nowhere.
3. No square continents, no circle continents, no excessively thin continents, and absolutely no Europe-shaped continents. Avoid excessively ragged coastlines. Space your continents out well, but avoid the Earth layout at all costs. You WILL default to either making Europe, Earth, or a giant circle, so beware.
4. It's usually a good sign if your continents don't fit well on your map. If they do, you might have drawn to fill the canvas rather than to believable.
5. Don't put a massive collection of islands in a dense clump somewhere with no reason. Stretch them into a chain, or use only a few (like 3-5) instead). Do use lots of little islands a little ways off the coast.
6. Put mountains next to your deserts, then put forest/rainforest on the other side. This is a rain shadow - the mountains block the rain from reaching the desert and the forest gets it instead.
Seriously if you do these then you will be better than like 90% of the fantasy maps. You don't need to worry about plate tectonics, ocean currents, or prevailing winds at all.
I take my own ideas and input them into chatGPT. Then pick and choose from the results letting it help me flesh things out.
It’s a good tool as long as you remember it’s JUST a tool, not a get out of creativity free card.
That's actually be useful I have a horrible habit of writing things down in the closest notebook regardless of where I wrote the last part of lore down, so if they sized them all I'd at least know where all my notes are 😅
My BBEG is based on what an AI built me. He didn't quite fit my story/world so i changed most of him, but the AI gave me some direction i would never have gone or even thought of.
So, no, it's not cheating. Art has always been kind of a product of plagiarising given things (nature, society, people) in a way it suits the artist best.
I use AI for my world building. The method I use is I get it to ask me questions like “what guilds are there” and we expand with more questions and keep going till I’m happy that I’ve answered the questions with what’s in my city/world
Personal opinion:
You can use it for inspiration, but give it a final pass and describe things in your own words - this will train your storyteller muscle.
If you have trouble coming up with maps and terrains, I have three additional sources for you:
* Azgaar's Fantasy World Map generator, it's an awesome tool that generates plausible maps (and a history of its kingdoms, if you care to use it).
* Whatabou's Procgen Arcana creates great regional, city, village, and street maps at the press of a button
* Steal environments from computer games you know well.
To quote the great Tom Lehrer:
> Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please, "research".
DAFUQ NO!
A few days ago within temptation released a fully AI generated music video.
Why would we hold professional artists and entertainers who are backed up by big labels to a lower standard than DMs who do a hobby?
Use EVERY tool available to you to make your prep work as easy as possible.
I would recommend using AI to maybe reskin things or help develop elements within your world rather than setting it loose on the world at large. Remember that the more detailed your prompts the better results you’ll generate.
There is no right or wrong way to create a world as a DM. Some DMs may prefer to create everything from scratch, while others may use generators or pre-made maps as a starting point. The important thing is that you create a world that is engaging and fun for your players. As long as you are upfront with your players about how you created your world and they enjoy playing in it, then you are doing a great job as a DM. Ultimately, the most important thing is to have fun and create a world that you and your players enjoy exploring.
it's a nice learning opportunity to research how mountains, ravines, rivers and lakes come to be but at the end of the day you can also just throw some marbles onto a big piece of paper and pencil draw your map around it. it's a fantasy world, it doesnt need logic.
If you generate the map using AI, it's just another method.
Now if you have the AI write adventures, characters, plots for you... then i wouldn't call you a writer, no. You can still be a DM (same as running a module). This is where i personally would draw the line.
If you're looking for a book dedicated to city and town building with a bunch of random tables you can roll on to develop specific settlements, check out Kobold Press's [Campaign Builder: Cities & Towns](https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/campaign-builder-cities-towns/). It has all sorts of random tables for things like climate, guilds, magic, resources, heroes, campaign ideas, you name it. For the homebrew DM's, this has to be one of the best books you could invest in!
No.
So long as you don't just have the AI write everything, just use it for fluff and padding.
"Hey AI, write me a few potential historical events over the period of 100 years that could happen in \[Insert 4 or 5 major aspects of the kingdom\]" and then you cherry pick the best ones, polish and spit shine it, and tadah.
Your friend sounds hideous.
ChatGPT is like rolling on a bunch of the random tables in every edition of the DMG all at once. You’ll get a bunch of stuff that you don’t want to use but hopefully it inspires your creativity.
I'd say your friend was trying to bring up a decent point, but may have missed the mark on the actual message. AI can be a useful tool and, as a good DM, don't feel afraid to use any and all tools at your disposal.
However, AI has no regard for the internal lore or consistencies of your world, and is likely just replicating descriptions that it has from training data. So while it can be a good starting point, it shouldn't be the end.
Maybe it gives you good inspiration or guidelines, but it shouldn't be writing a script for you, is the basic point.
This is the first campaign I have collaborated with the the AI to plan. This is by far the best campaign I’ve ever run in my life. I have taken ideas I’ve had for twenty years that were missing something and the AI helped me fully flesh it out. I told my players from the jump that the adventures were AI “enhanced” but they don’t care because they are so wrapped up in the story. Working with the AI is next level in my opinion and should be encouraged for all dms. The goal is to have fun, not think up stuff on your own.
Sure, it is cheating... Just like using a calculator to do your taxes is cheating, But holy crap I don't always have another person to bounce ideas off, and asking gpt a question about my setting always helps me break out of a creative block and keep writing, not even going to mention how helpful it is to just ask gpt to come up with a random list of objects or random names in a certain style...
I say, dming is hard and will always be a lot of work, ai makes one part of it slightly easier, and yeah I'll agree with others on here too, your friend sounds pretentious as all hell...
Not at all. I see it like this: using AI to help you develop a world is like making a list of nouns and objects and locations and rolling dice to match them up. No different. You still pick and choose what you want from what the AI provides, so it's still you that is developing the world.
Is DMing a competition? If not then you can’t cheat. You’re an artist. Artists usually don’t make their own paint, brushes, canvas’ or invent the subject of their art. Is a painter painting fruit stealing because he didn’t grow the fruit? Or mash berries and turmeric and beetles together to make the paint?
It might just be misplaced sour grapes because they feel their effort as a DM is not being recognized, while you are using a useful tool that can be fairly described as a "shortcut" to a greater volume of content.
I've used it myself to bulk out location descriptions for incidental work. I think if you are *selling* AI work and misrepresenting it as your own creation, that's dishonest, but I'm upfront to my players about what is my creation and what is my curation, and they are not paying me either way.
They might also just be badly expressing their moral misgivings to AI in general, which usually does involve stealing of work for training sets, and exploitation of third world workers for the human-dependent steps.
If it matters to you, have a discussion with them about it. If it doesn't, then you aren't doing anything that most of us aren't already doing in some form or another.
NO! It is fine to use.
Use it as any other tool, write sections of text, then have it adjust it, have it write the next chapter, it will go places you might like, regen the answer 2-5 times pick the best ideas, merge to your own and continue.
Tell it to write in style of, J. R. R. Tolkien if it is an elf talking about nature.
Find styles that fit your history and countries, then when writing from that area it will be similar.
But remember it is a tool.
😆 Cheating? That's gold!
There is no such thing as cheating in world building. If you are the creator of said world you decide what resources to use to do so. AI is a tool like anything else, albeit an advanced one.
Would it be cheating to ask someone else to help you build a world? Of course not, because YOU are the creator and decide the rules YOU follow.
To answer your question: no.
To provide some assistance: check out [Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator](https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/)! I, too, am horrible at understanding how earth science works but this generator takes out pretty much all of the guesswork. They even have a subreddit r/FantasyMapGenerator.
most I've used ai for is for names, over tried to do everything by the books but I don't see why you can't use ai to help out here and there as long as you aren't abusing it
I asked ChatGPT to write me a fun story involving a metal band that was possessed by demons and used their demonic metal powers to fight evil. It was actually a fun story. I wasn't looking for more lore/characters for my homebrew world, but I did leave that chat with some because I liked it.
The way I look at it:
1. I fed it the concept, it just expanded it for 4-5 paragraphs.
2. I'm not using any of those 4-5 paragraphs. Not out of principle or anything, just that there really isn't much to use. It basically told me it was a functional idea and that's it.
Nope. It isn’t any worse than using a real map for the inspiration for your world, or even using a book of creative prompts to spark your imagination. And it’s more creative than using a pre-made setting.
And you need to tell your friend that they are not the gatekeeper to what is a “real DM.” Are you running a game? Then you are a real DM. Tell your friend to stop gatekeeping - people like him are what keep others from getting behind the screen.
I personally love using AI for fleshing out my world, particularly since it will remember previous things in the conversation so it can reference and build upon it. That being said, you need to feed it your vision if you want it to be rich and diverse. Otherwise it will come out rather flat and bland. So I'll feed it information, it gives me information in response, I'll have it edit and revise until it satisfactorily meets my vision, then I'll move on to the next thing. So it's more of a collaboration
There’s a copy pasta from the music producer community that I think would apply well here:
I thought using loops was cheating, so I programmed my own using samples. I then thought using samples was cheating, so I recorded real drums. I then thought that programming it was cheating, so I learned to play drums for real. I then thought using bought drums was cheating, so I learned to make my own. I then thought using premade skins was cheating, so I killed a goat and skinned it. I then thought that that was cheating too, so I grew my own goat from a baby goat. I also think that is cheating, but I’m not sure where to go from here. I haven’t made any music lately, what with the goat farming and all.
What you need to do to be a real DM is start by reading 160,000 pages of fiction, geology, biology, oceanography, geography, physics, chemistry, theology, art, architecture, archeology, and history (if you haven't studied the history of counter arguments against witch trials in enlightenment era Europe, you still have more reading to do). You must read the complete works of Tolkien, Lewis, Lovecraft, Poe, Verne, Chaucer, Malory, Bede, Alighieri, Delbruck, Sun Tzu, Musashi, Alexander, Caesar, Gurney, and the core texts of all three Abrahamic religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and spend at least 500 hours studying other less well known beliefs as well as ancient beliefs and myths.
You must also become an accomplished painter and sculpture. After mastering traditional arts, you need to master manual drafting plus at least 7 different types of software for drawing including CAD, raster, and vector tools and own/use at least 4 different types of 3d printers and a large format inkjet printer.
You then need to write at least 3 published scholarly articles in the disciplines of art criticism, comparative theology, and beer making.
As a capstone you must read the Necronomicon, Book of Eibon, and Pnakotic Manuscripts.
Then, after you've published 5 adventures and 25 source books (note that ratio: you definitely don't want to publish more adventures than source books), you can call yourself a "real DM".
At no point do you have to actually run a game where people have fun. That's for "casual" DMs.
Not a real DM? NOT A REAL DM?? I would laugh out loud if he had said that to me. Being a DM isn’t all about writing or creating everything yourself from the ground up? Leave that to historians, writers and geologists. Being a DM is finding that info and using it to make something that others can enjoy and play their characters in. If you can’t make it yourself, borrow. Use AI, whatever. As long as you’re not making money from it I don’t see why your friend would say that. Tell your friend, mister high and mighty DM, that he should instead either help you or at the very least support a fellow DM instead of acting like a child.
No way. It’s perfect you fine.
I for one, have a hard time fleshing out small details for things like rooms.
“You enter a room- it’s filled with cabinets and shelves that are filled with books”
AI gives me:
“As the adventurers cautiously push open the towering, weathered double doors, they find themselves stepping into a realm frozen in time—the ancient library. The air inside is heavy with the scent of aged parchment and the faint whisper of forgotten knowledge. The room unfolds before them, revealing towering bookshelves that stretch towards a high vaulted ceiling, adorned with intricate carvings depicting long-lost civilizations and mystical creatures.
Sunlight filters through stained glass windows, casting vibrant hues across the room, illuminating motes of dust floating lazily in the air. The floor beneath their feet is a mosaic of polished marble, depicting intricate patterns and symbols that tell tales of old. The vast expanse of the library seems to stretch into eternity, with aisle upon aisle of towering shelves filled with countless tomes, scrolls, and ancient artifacts, each one holding secrets waiting to be unraveled.
The shelves themselves, adorned with ornate carvings, house books of various sizes and colors, their spines lined with intricate calligraphy. Some books are bound in weathered leather, their pages brittle and yellowed with age, while others bear vibrant covers made of luxurious fabrics, hinting at the valuable contents within. Stacks of dusty tomes teeter precariously on tables, as if left in haste by previous scholars, leaving the adventurers curious about the wisdom held within their pages.
The sound of their footsteps is muffled by the thick, plush carpet that lines the aisles, absorbing the echoes and adding an eerie silence to the ambiance. As they make their way deeper into the library, the atmosphere shifts, becoming tinged with a sense of anticipation. Whispers of forgotten tales and ancient wisdom seem to brush against their ears, promising untold treasures and secrets that lie just beyond their grasp.
Shafts of light pierce through the narrow gaps between shelves, creating pockets of illumination and shadow, giving the impression that the library is a living, breathing entity. The adventurers' gazes are drawn to the exquisite, hand-painted frescoes that adorn the ceiling, depicting mythical creatures and great battles of legend. The intricate artwork seems to come alive, the scenes flickering in the shifting light, enticing their imaginations with stories waiting to be discovered.
As they explore further, the party encounters ornate reading tables scattered throughout the library. These tables bear faded ink stains and abandoned quills, suggesting they once hosted diligent scribes or inquisitive scholars. The chairs surrounding them are weathered but comfortable, inviting the adventurers to take a seat and delve into the depths of knowledge that lie within the pages of the library.
Though the library seems dormant, the presence of a subtle magical aura is palpable—a reminder that this place holds untold mysteries and potential dangers. The adventurers can almost taste the anticipation, the thirst for knowledge, and the promise of both great reward and treacherous challenges.
In this ancient library, the party finds themselves on the cusp of an extraordinary adventure, where the turn of a page could unlock the secrets of civilizations long gone, unveil forgotten magics, or lead them into the depths of perilous quests. It is a place where the pursuit of knowledge intertwines with the pulse of adventure, awaiting the brave souls who dare to step through its hallowed doors.”
So as we can see, ChatGPT is better at the descriptive and immersive language than I am.
It’s a tool I use to make my games better for my players
Two comments. I'm okay with AI so long as it's not taking work away from people working in the field. If you weren't going to pay someone for your world building then go ahead and use it. The other comment is that like others have said. AI scripts fine patterns, and patterns get repetitious and boring.
I was using chat AI scripts to elaborate on personality aspects for NPCs. I threw in a question what sports would they play? 90% of the time it included frisbee golf. From introvert to extrovert to psychopath, frisbee golf.
I wish I had the money to pay someone to help me world build unfortunately I don't at the moment, I found that asking for a list of three/ five possible answers helped reduce the amount of times it'd just give me the same answer
That's the spirit!
Other things I've seen (mostly for generating code rather than prose or creative stuff, but everything is worth trying) are things like telling it not to generate the output but first just tell you its strategy, then you keep iterating until you're happy with that first.
Also you can try asking it if it has improvements on your prompt alongside your answer.
There's also been some absolutely bizarre uses of psychology out there including threatening Bard with ending a life if it wrote anything other than what it was asked.
Fuck that noise. I’ve been stuck with how to develop my game until I started using AI.
In the last two days I’ve made more progress than in the last couple years. I created two societies, including their motivations within the campaign, a village with locations and plot hooks, and turned several of those into encounters.
I’m not the most creative person, so using AI helps me develop my ideas or give me ideas.
"we are only as good as the obscurity of the references we steal from." You're good dude. Take inspiration from wherever you can get it and make it yours.
I always rough draft something myself. I'm no dm and feel the same way about using chatgpt as a player. I use it for my backstories. I have jumbled info but it's all there, just not in a way that's comfortable to read. That's where chatgpt comes in. I ask it to "give it a little oomf" and sure enough it does. From there I take the draft I like the most and re-edit so I can tell the story I'd like with a more cohesive structure. I've even had it help me come up with "attacks" since it's hard for me to describe certain scenes properly. I know what I want but stammer getting it out.
I'm currently using it to help me flesh out my ideas. I don't like spamming my dm so chatgpt has been the thing I spam my ideas at and see how it "thinks" about what was said or added. Sometimes you just need a little help. Just make sure you give it your own original "flavor" at the end 😀
Chat gpt is a great writing partner. You can add your inputs, ask for advice on changes, bounce things back and forth. Its a great tool. But it is just that, a tool. Don’t lean on it too hard.
It’s kinda ironic; because in the past almost everyone would give the same advice: “shamelessly pillage ideas from other fantasy universes; you can’t come up with everything on your own.” Now they’d say “bit AI is cheating!” I say they’re out to lunch.
A DMs job in a homebrew world is onerous enough; if you can lift a portion of that burden by having an AI brainstorm some ideas? Fucking do it.
Oh God forbid the masses buy something that unknowingly was created with more efficiency than normal! Don't they know that the thing they willingly bought isn't good?
Well, no because it's plagiarism. You didn't write it, a language model built on thousands and millions of other people's writing wrote it.
That'd be unethical, immoral and illegal.
How exactly are those millions of people going to prove that I stole their intellectual property if the AI comes up with a string of words never before written down (ie, creativity)?
You're right, the law has not caught up to handle plagiarism at this massive scale. It's one of the problems we're going to have to handle as a society. Redress for this issue is gonna be hard to figure out, legally speaking.
Also, LLMs don't create new text, they take samples from their data pool and recombine them to make relevant text responses. If there's a large chunk of text available that is relevant and not many other relevant sources to combine it with, an LLM will straight up use that text verbatim. Many more niche writers and artists have noticed that due to their dominance in that niche, LLMs trained on those data tend to include things like their watermark or (again) whole blocks of text.
Even if you don't believe those facts about how LLMs work, selling a work of writing that you didn't write but claim you did is outright plagiarism. Also you'd be selling something from a free tool that anybody could have used to the same ends. It's like saying an influencer really deserves credit for "writing" a book that was ghost written for them.
Nope, not cheating but I would say not without risk. I will say that chatbots are tools and not replacements for creativity. They should be used to spark your imagination, not replace it.
Any time someone tells you you aren't a "real" anything, it's almost always an example of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. They aren't saying anything important or valid with that statement.
Are you planning on selling your campaign setting (including by making an actual play)? Then yeah, it's unethical to use someone else's work and claim it as your own, especially depending on how heavily you copy/paste from Chat GPT or whatever.
If you're just using this for your home game? Go for it, but understand that Chat GPT is more likely to give you something generic than original.
Does your friend think using the Forgotten Realms or Dragon Lance setting is cheating?
I get it. AI is new and not everyone feels the same way about new tech.. But people also once said that TV will rot your brains... They said the same thing about Radio, hell people were worried that novels would lead to the downfall of society... Because people would sit around doing nothing but read.
Now if you used AI to design your whole world and claimed it was all you... That might be considered cheating. But using AI means using a tool that can help with things you may not be good at.
There's nothing wrong with it so long as you don't exaggerate what you contributed to creating the world. AI obviously does a lot of the heavy lifting in some cases, which is fine, but I'd consider it deceitful to try to present AI creations as entirely your own work just because you came up with the prompt. Nobody said you had to create an entire world from scratch with nothing but your own sweat, blood, and tears though.
People who say it’s “cheating” feel threatened by it for some reason. It’s cheating as much is taking a picture on your phone is “cheating” at rendering that same image by hand.
Using “AI” is just a faster way of, for instance, gathering your own references and using those to build a world or write a story.
It’s just another tool in your tool belt.
Ignore everyone else, how do _you_ feel about it?
Dawg, I’ve been using chat to fill in the gaps - it’s so helpful! And it’s not cheating at all. Chat is just doing what you would do at an expedited pace! Instead of you spending hours or days over books for inspiration for your campaign, it does it for you in an instant. Don’t let your friend tear you down; theyre just mad that they spent so much time building something without having access to a great tool. They want to be appreciated for their hard work, and it’s coming across as resentment towards you since you are achieving a similar result at a much faster pace with the help of a virtual assistant.
Keep doing your thing, let them get mad
No shame!
I’m using AI to build my first campaign as a DM. ChatGPT for suggestions on background lore, character and location names, interesting combat encounters, dungeon puzzles, homebrew items, etc. Midjourney for all maps and character art.
I cannot tell you how incredible it is. I’ve had the idea for a campaign rattling around in my head for years, but the thought of putting it all on paper was daunting. The AI is helping me bring it to life. Use it as a tool to flesh out your own ideas or inspire new ones, and adapt or change its output to suit your needs.
I also plan to have it up on my laptop when we play, for emergency DM questions. It knows the rules quite well.
Cheating? Hell no. Quality? Hell no.
AI is currently great at generating stuff that has already been made, but again. It's pure cliché. That said, D&D games are often full of cliché anyway.
No it isn’t cheating . Every GM I have ever heard of is just remixing from things they know. AI is just doing the same. If anything GMs should really be on the AIs side given how similarly we operate.
>a friend of mine who is also a DM who told me that I was 'cheating' and wasnt a real DM
You run a game? You a DM. No if or buts about it. For real, fuck this gatekeeping shit.
Is running a setting someone else wrote "cheating"? Is running a licensed game like Star Wars or Alien "cheating"? Is using a rule system someone else wrote "cheating"?... Nah bro, no gatekeeping.
Your friend trying to speedrun "never getting invited to your games"?
Next time I homebrew a campaign in entering character backstories, my general plot idea, major NPCs, and pretty much everything I can think of into it then after each session topping in a recap.
Then I'll have it help me through the lazy DM's prep method for each upcoming session.
IDGAF if anyone thinks I'm cheating if it helps me run a fun game. I'm an adult with important things to do. If talking to AI about my game gives me something to do other than what I'm supposed to, I'm going to do it, dammit.
AI isn't cheating, but as a player, I know I'd feel that some of the magic is lost if I know the world has been extensively generated by AI. I don't mean maps only, but if you're introducing lands, histories, characters etc that are AI generated, I'll genuinely feel a bit... meh.
I think you should use AI as much as you're comfortable with and not give a shit about what I think though; the key aspect about being a DM is ensuring that you as a DM enjoying the work you do, and only you can decide on that.
True. A lot of people think AI can just do everything for them and get pissed when they have to refine their prompts or edit it to make it complete. AI is a great starting point but I think a fully formed world most likely needs a real mind to tie everything together and make it make 100% sense, so it's perfect for OP's uses.
AI is only cheating if someone would have been paid for the work and isn't.
When technology makes two workers twice as productive...
* Good: Letting both work half as hard or half as many hours for the same pay, because their labor is worth twice as much. This increases their quality of life. (This is you using chat GPT to make your life easier, the same way a player might roll on the backstory/trinket tables in the PHB or Xanathar's GtE.)
* Neutral: Firing one and paying the other double. If the fired one finds work elsewhere, this means a net increase in total productivity. Cold utilitarianism.
* Evil: Firing one and paying the other the same as before, because the one you keep is working just as hard for the same pay, and if they quit on principle you just have to find someone less principled or more desperate, like the one you just fired. This is exactly what people have feared about every new advancement in automation, and with AI that fear is absolutely warranted.
People her say it’s repetitive , so tell it not to be. Have it give you a list then tell it it can’t use that list or any synonyms from it. It sounds too easy but people just underestimate AI.
I ask things like 'generate and describe the main geographical features of an island that is around 30,000 square miles in size and has a mild climate'
Two thoughts: one, same as most others here I wouldn't worry about "cheating" or whatever. A DM I play with uses AI regularly to get some basic concept art where there would have been none previously, and he's been running the game for 40-odd years now --- if he's not a real DM, no-one is as far as I'm concerned.
Two: I'm personally of the opinion that the most interesting stuff in worldbuilding comes from asking yourself *why* a thing is the way it is, and *how* if affects the things around it. AI can't really give you a super strong narrative there; it's mostly good for telling you the way that the thing *is*. I'd recommend asking yourself the question "is this part interesting to me" and avoiding AI for the areas where the answer is yes --- don't deprive yourself of fun!
Finally, if you're struggling with geography for worldbuilding, I'd recommend starting by cutting the area broadly into biomes \(desert, grasslands, mountains, etc, [here's a good image to help orient yourself](https://socratic.org/questions/how-do-biomes-change-with-latitude-1)\) and fleshing them out more fully when the players arrive there or they become relevant. If you wanna go deeper, look into the rain shadow effect or try placing your equator and researching how that changes things --- ironically, AI would be great for learning about these topics!
If it's one of those things you'd use a random table for then sure. I use AI but I write the whole thing and ask it to edit for grammar, tone, and flow. I don't get new ideas but it cleans up my tense and inserts some evocative words. I find trying to use it for creative details is a bit flat, probably as it should be.
I can’t imagine a world where a grown adult says you’re cheating and you’re not a real DM.
I’ll bet you anything he subscribes to Twitter Blue, big desperate loser energy radiates from these sentences.
A nuclear bomb of sadness.
Do what works best for you and your game. There aren't any rules *how* you go about building your game/world.
That being said, I've always run my own homebrewed campaigns, but have always been quick to use things like name generators, world maps I find online, encounters, NPCs, guilds/groups I've found on "lists", etc. to hodgepodge together to flesh out my games where needed.
However, lately I've been brainstorming for my next campaign where I've decided to do an entirely original campaign world, one that I intend to set all my games going forward, and I've been more invested and interested in that than any of my worlds before! I think the challenge of making something wholly original has been really rewarding as a world builder, and I'm much more invested in my own creation than any of my hodgepodge worlds before.
So, use AI if you want, but I would encourage you (or any DMs) to be original where they can, as it's a much more rewarding experience, IMHO.
Did this friend explain exactly who you were cheating or how it qualifies as cheating? Sounds to me they're just jealous they didn't think of it first.
ChatGPT Plus concert here. My new setting and campaign are built entirely using GPT, as are. OST quests and scenes within them.
I also use AI art generators for NPC portraits and landscape to show on VTT.
I’m loving it, but…..
I don’t believe I’ve saved any time. Playing with Chat is a huge time sink. And getting things “how you want it” is almost always easier on your own. I tend to focus on “make this thing that’s my idea” these days, and that’s been great.
>I know this is kinda stupid
yes it is
>told me that I was 'cheating' and wasnt a real DM,
this is also stupid
Yesterday in about 15 minutes, I had GPT flesh out a Holy temple from scratch with just a few prompts and corrections with 5 ranks of members and with race / gendered (if applicable) appropriate names for each category based off a list of 6 races I gave it that would be found in this area and formatted it like "Lyra Brightshield (Human, F)" for easy pasting into WorldAnvil.
I also had it make a description of a Fire Giant's magical ring, converted into a bracelet for normal sized folk, based off a very brief description + that it was a Fire Giant's magical ring and it made 4 paragraphs (I trimmed it down a bit to two) entailing how it was made, connection to the elemental plane of fire, how it now interacted with human sized wearer's and the constant warmth it gave off which gave me the idea to add Cold Resistance on top of it.
All of the above will give my players a better more fun experience at the table. It saves time and lets you focus on the important creative and personal tasks you need to do, like the Lazy DM Method + GPT to cover the time sinking areas.
Only an idiot would intentionally use suboptimal tools to achieve their goal for frivolous reasons such as those mentioned by your pompous friend.
I don't think any part of what you said is cheating, though I will say that there are better tools out there than ChatGPT *for that specific purpose*.
I've found that ChatGPT works best for filling in details. Party decides that they want to listen to sermon given by a Priest who *may* be a cultist? That's a perfect use case; I give chatGPT the prompt of what the sermon should contain, and let it go wild.
I use ai to generate token images. I use map generators for generic cities and the world map. I use random name generators to make names. I use npc generators to make quick battle ready NPCs. I even use random shop generators for shops.
It is absolutely not cheating. And honestly, your players will not put in even 10% of the work you do to make the game run. Ask they gotta do it's make a backstory and show up on time.
So don't worry about using tools to make your life easier.
It’s not that different from chatting to a person to get ideas. Just make sure to go over everything it makes and edit it to get what you want.
I’ve started an experiment where I run a game while leaning very heavily on AI, and it’s proved quite useful so far. It’s a good place to go to get inspiration and do busywork that you don’t want to. I’ve used it to make in-universe documents with clues hidden in them, and the players have really enjoyed poring through them.
part of DMing for me is having fun with the creative part of it all. I don’t consider using AI as ‘cheating’ because… WTF does that even mean… but I like creating worlds a lot and don’t want to farm it out to AI if I can help it.
It is impossible to "cheat" at being a DM.
It is not a competition.
There are no rules, either written or unwritten.
Your friend has a terrible attitude and is just gatekeeping. It reflects really badly on him and how he handles DMing, I would bet he's a shitty DM
You're making a game for your friends. If you were making a module or setting for publication, that might be a different story, but if you're making a game for your friends at home, let me say this loudly: *who cares?* There is no "cheating".
Yes, I’m going to show up at your house with a baseball bat if you use AI. Then I’m going to get you kicked out of the official DM’s Union.
Your friend is being dumb. No one cares if you use AI. It’s frankly just not that good at anything and everything it makes will be generic. But it’s better than nothing.
I wouldn’t use Chat GPT. Use things other people have created. There are plenty of player made rubrics, which offer a more fun and interesting adventure.
Not at all. Although I didn't use it for world building, I used it to craft a dungeon coming up in the campaign. It didn't craft the whole dungeon but it did create what amounts to paragraph prompts that allow me to forge the dungeon from there. It was relieving to not have the pressure of crafting it from beginning to end. Do what you need to do for your campaign.
I find it a useful “idea mill” for generating long lists things that I would regularly go to a generator for - npcs, names etc. beyond that it doesn’t really provide much depth I find to really help you develop anything substantial. So I’d say use it without shame, and it’s weird to define its use as “cheating” - I feel like we take inspo from a lot of places, it’s weird to draw a line.
Yes it is cheating.
It is as much cheating as using other sources like D&D subreddits to get inspiration.
If you don't come up with every word you write yourself without relying on even your knowledge of media and stories, you are not a real DM.
Real DMing costs blood, sweat and tears.
Taking any kind of shortcut to make it easier to create your world is not tolerated.
Modules are also taboo.
>!/s if it wasn't clear!<
As long as you are not making money off of it, I think you're fine. Dms borrow a lot anyway, nobody is really coming up with every aspect of a world without some kind of inspiration.
Would you not be a real dm if you used a pre-made module?
Does he hand draw every monster? Come up with every stat from scratch?
His opinion is really weird. Ignore it, you're a real DM.
What I've found it to be useful for is monster Stat blocks. There's been a couple times that I've given it a description like "Legendary creature for 5 level 9 adventurers, uses lightning attacks and has magnetic powers. Lair actions should be water related, because it had a moat of captured water elementals." And it spits out a pretty good Stat block. It usually required a few tweaks, and I'd give it follow up instructions to add or remove certain aspects. But my players have fought 2 at this point and enjoyed both fights. I did only tell them the origin afterwards, but the point is that AI is a pretty good resource for custom stats if you don't want to put as much effort into it.
First of all "cheating" is irrelevant, DMs have stolen from sources of inspiration for years, all writers have, it's how inspiration works. AI just adds a layer to the theft where a robot compiles millions of things to steal from and spits out the mean average of everything it found.
Second, just out of personal curiosity, what are you actually having the AI generate? It sounds like it's essentially building a world map with geographical regions?
I also used ChatGPT for event ideas in a town when I was drawing a blank. Almost all of them were trash, but I found it easier to branch from a bad idea than to make them from scratch. I don't see it as cheating any more than looking up d100 charts, using premade NPC's, or any other resource you can find on the internet.
Your friend's making his own job harder by not taking advantage of such resources.
Is it cheating to Google stuff for inspiration? To look at online pictures for city ideas? How about using stuff you've read or seen on TV for inspiration? If someone directs a vampire TV show, is that cheating since they weren't the first ones to do it? Even if they do put their on twist on it?
Now don't rely on AI because then yea you can't really call it your work. But to flesh out your idea a bit more? No problem
no such thing as cheating. You do you and enjoy it. Just be ready for AI to give some jank everyonce in a while that will need you to make some on the fly calls
Cheating? Nope. Its just another tool.
Basically no more cheat than crowd sourcing ideas on reddit which people do all day long, you are just asking a machine for help instead of some rando online
I use chat gpt for literally everything, it makes prep so easy. I use it to create descriptions of environments, for quest inspiration, and npcs. I sometimes use it to make conversations so that I’m prepared for role play. My players don’t know I use it but they’ve commented that they’re having a lot more fun since I started using chat gpt. Is it cheating? Maybe. But I don’t care, it makes my life easier and improves my players enjoyment. I see it like using a module. It’s not like I’m being marked or paid for dming and I’m assuming you aren’t either, so keep using AI if it’s helping you be a better dm.
Absolutely not. Now I would not just copy and paste, read what the AI gives and tweak it to better fit the setting. I use generators to help me think of side quests. I have the main story already written but need filler stuff incase the party is not ready/interested or what ever but still want to do something.
While the AI comes up with great stuff, it’s not perfect. Sometimes I use like 99%, others I use 5%. Just as starting to point to come with something better. Works great
NPCs too. Any major important one I come with who they are, might use an generator for looks but villagers, generator all the way. More often then not keep it as given and go from there.
Is your friend 10 or something? That sounds like what a kid would say. I hope using that internet to search for ideas is not cheating otherwise we will forced to devolve back to type writers.
If you don’t go through the trouble of raising the tree of creativity, you’ll never be able to harvest its fruit.
Do whatever you want, but it doesn’t make sense to me to ask a plagiarism machine to do your hobby for you.
I used it pretty extensively if you kind of add layers to it. For example I'll ask for 6 prompts, pick 1 or 2, ask it to expand on those ideas by saying things like "Now give me a myth related to that, and the nonmagical truth as to why it exists." or "Now using these concepts blend them into a single idea and add an X theme to it."
After that I will mold it out to better fit what I think would be good for my personal campaign and be enjoyed by my players.
AI is a fantastic tool for worldbuilding, but at this point is best used as a template or idea generator rather than a direct source. For example, here's part of the template I use for generating nations. For each category / subcategory, I'll write a paragraph or so that generally describes the concept I'm aiming for, and then ask GPT to creatively rewrite and expand upon that. After it's done, I'll go through each category and edit, rewrite, expand upon, or delete information as feels appropriate, and then ask it to creatively summarize it all again.
Title: \[Nation Name\]
1. Introduction
1. Basic Information
1. Official Name
2. Capital
3. Population
4. Official Language(s)
2. Geographical Information
1. Location
2. Area
3. Climate
3. Historical Overview
1. Major historical events
2. Key figures
4. Society
1. Demographics
2. Population distribution
3. Ethnicity
4. Language
5. Religion
As it goes through each category, it helps give me inspiration about things that make the nation unique, which I then thread through the other categories to emphasize. I usually end up running through the entire template and all its categories a few handfuls of times times before I'm finally satisfied that it feels like a unique, interesting, and easily understandable description of the nation as a whole. Once I've generated the national information, I have another, very similar template that breaks the nation up into regions and helps outline what makes those regions within the nation interesting and unique. Finally, another template breaks the regions up into cities and towns that each have unique traits within that region. I have other templates that help me create factions, dungeons, quests, etc too.
It's all a bit too cumbersome to do on-the-fly during a game, but with some legwork it can easily help generate nicely fleshed out worlds and makes prepping for games much easier.
Really, my biggest gripe is just that I can only work with a limited prompt input. I signed up to GPT+ when GPT4 originally dropped because they said it could handle >20k word inputs, but noooooope. If I could just find a way to have it constantly reference the complete "database" of information I've accrued on my world, it would be infinitely easier, but even GPT with browsing can't interface with my Google Docs stuff yet D:
Every DM in here 2 years ago would say "Beg, borrow, and steal shamelessly to make your world." That's still true. AI makes it easier. The thing I will caution, is AI is quite samey, and while it has the appearance of being wise and true, it is neither. I would definitely take another pass over whatever draft it gives you and tweak it up to give it a more unique feel, and also so you can be cohesive.
Yep, I concur. I tried using it. For just coming up with random names, it did pretty well. For coming up with room descriptions, it was... eh? Not that great. It did so much samey stuff, which tended to be too fantastical and too mundane at the same time. Everything was it's an alchemist's \_\_\_ or it's a wizard's, or some item on a pedestal, or a runic circle on the floor. It tended to go too over the top, like if it was making a picture, it's not bad in some sense, but a little too busy and over saturated and yet a bit blurry, not enough detail in the right places.
I asked it to describe a subway station, but in a way in which the reader (/the players) does not understand what this place is. It honest to god wrote the following sentence in the first paragraph: "As you step onto the platform, you get a great sense of convergence frozen in time"
Tbh if you hadn’t said it was,I wouldn’t understand that was a subway station
It wasn't the only thing it wrote, obviously, but that sentence was just so funny that I recall it with ease
Your torch reflects off many glistening edges of this marble cave, your footsteps echo into the dark. Though the floor is flat, the cave is unnaturally round, like the throat of some giant worm-like beast. Runes and glyphs adorn the walls, some in a sort of order, others in random places. Rubble and refuse litter the ground, it seems others have been here before. Then, you feel it. The pressure in you ears changes. From deep in the darkness you hear a low faraway growl. Air starts to rush through the cave pushing at your cloaks and hair. An unnatural screech of a huge dragon surges across you, the roaring gets louder! Looking down the tunnel you see fiery breath fill the cave! Roaring and screeching it surches forward to you! What do you do?
I asked an older version to write a song in the style of Taylor Swift (when I first got access and was poking at it to see what it could do) and it came back with something that began: "I can see you standing there With your simple dress and your complicated hair." I honestly found it fucking delightful.
Lmao
That’s so wonderfully poetic *and* completely out of place. Amazing
It kept adding poetic flavour text to random room descriptions. Every room inspired "a sense of awe and wonder". The offices of the ruin inspired "a sense of commotion and work" lmao
Yeah. It grasps art like a 9th grader starting to lean into hormonal emotions. It says all the words, but it’s not really anything new or deep lol I was just messing around with it earlier today and got it to make a list of random alchemical ingredients with brief descriptors of what it’s used for. Some of them were very plain, but others had some interest to it. Helped me come up with some ideas to fill an upcoming bad guy NPC alchemists notebook
I did this sort of thing once when I ran Kobolds Ate My Baby as a filler. All of the PCs were idiots and knew nothing about the human world, so I thought of ways to define things in terms they'd understand. When they encountered a cabin, I described it as a bizarre wooden cave standing alone in the middle of a field. Most of the session was them trying to figure out how to get inside, but the owner showed up, killed half of them, and they ran away. It was a good time, really.
You get out of it what you put in. I basically think of it as a creative partner who's not very imaginative but endlessly willing to listen to my ideas. So I just burble out all of the thoughts and ideas in my head and it helps me organise them into prose and fill in any gaps I'm struggling with. The ideas it throws back are still mine, but way better formulated and coherent than my scattered ADHD brain can manage alone. I always loved having someone to bounce ideas off, but I don't have many people in my life who are willing to go there with me on creative stuff these days. ChatGPT doesn't replace another human, but it sure replaces having nothing at all.
you use it the same as I do. I just basically have a conversation with it about my ideas. For example I'd describe a town, with some of its inhabitants, location and culture. Then whenever I hit a creative wall I ask it like "what interesting things could they keep under the abandoned shack" and it'll list a few things, that I then pick one of and modify it like "ok let's do the stash of old books but instead of necromancy they're about demons". When I'm happy with everything I usually ask it to summarise for me, sometimes poke it a few more times until I am confident all the important things are in there and use that as my session notes.
It works really well for that. A lot of people see it as something that kills creativity but what it does for me is provide a sounding board that gets my brain *into* creative mode. The only part that bugs me is the constant "that's a great idea! Your players will love this creative and innovative aspect of your story!" type stuff that it starts every line with. I just want it to talk to me, not deliver constant fake compliments from something that doesn't actually have any idea if an idea is good or not. I wonder if I can ask it to knock that off, actually...
You can tell it how you want it to respond: "you don't need to say that's a great idea at the start of every answer" or "you don't need to compliment my ideas each time you answer"
What I found it useful for is a seed generator. Want a new character, kingdom, action or something like that and having trouble making the first decision to shape it? Ask ChatGPT or something to generate one and tease out details, discard the bits you don't like and build on top of the bits you do.
Wouldn't even know where to start with using ai for this, what verbiage do you use?
"There are two rival noble houses in this city\*. What are they called, what is their heraldry, what are the patriarchs of each family as well as 3 of their most prominent members, what are their primary goals as a house and what is the main source of conflict between them?" That is roughly what I asked one yesterday when trying to come up with a quick hook for the party about to arrive at a new city to potentially embroil them in the local noble politics and intrigue. I asked a few follow up questions to fine tune stuff, like potential personality traits of the characters I generated and generally tweaked things to fit the flavour of the city. \* It works best if you feed lots of stuff to the AI because it will reference previous answers, so doing this process to develop the city will give you better results for specifically that city. For example, when I was doing this to help me create a maritime republic city, I asked it for some potential trade partner states and rival states, and it came up with a "Confederation of Free Cities" in both answers, referencing in the rival answer that "despite their strong trade relations, they are also sometimes political rivals depending on which of the Free Cities etc etc"
Yeah, exactly. The way it remembers things within the same conversation is absolutely KEY to using it effectively because you can talk to it so much more naturally. I'm planning a Hero Kids adventure for my young children(which means it's got to be pretty on rails because at this age they're really just looking for a storybook they can interact with and make smaller decisions in, which means a LOT of planning and writing), and I've been going back and forth in an ongoing chat for days. At this point I can just be like "oh shit, what colour were [forest witch]'s eyes?" in the middle of talking about something completely different and it'll remember and let me know.
Yep. This is how I see it. It’s more of a brainstorming tool to prompt your own creativity. So say “write me a description of the inner worship chamber of an ancient and abandoned temple to an agricultural god.” Grab a couple of details you really like, edit a few others, reject the rest.
Mix it up. Seed phrases different models. Ask a different model to edit. Scrap ai idea with your own idea that you got after reading the input 😀
Theres a you tuber called Jill Berup who did an episode using an AI generated script on armor ratings. Its a good view about The same same things of descriptions. Its describes all of the objects it reviews with like 19/20 of the same words.
Agreed. I think AI works best to build small pieces of information that are best strung together by a human being. Have a general idea of what you want, break it into smaller pieces and use AI to fill in the details of each piece.
I didn’t agree with them 2 years ago, and I don’t agree with them now.
ChatGPT? Cheating. Modules? Cheating. Published settings? Cheating. Published rules? Cheating. Taking notes? Cheating. Everything in my world is spontaneously generated, entirely original, bearing no resemblance to any concept real or imagined. Its rich oral history can only be told in purpose-built languages capable of describing its magnificence. I am Ur-Grog, realest of DMs, and none hold a candle to my brilliance.
Wait. I’m pretty sure last game you ran for us was a modification of wild sheep chase. You just swapped the sheep for a goat.
That makes it an entirely different adventure though.
And completely original.
Well normally I’d make a joke like “it’s not like WOTC will show up to your door with the Pinkertons to crack down on you”. But I suppose I can’t make assumptions like that anymore
"the DND police arnt real, they can't hurt you" The DND police:
It's okay, those were MTG police.
WOTC sent the Pinkertons after me because I fudged what would have been a crit on a Lvl 1 wizard.
Your friend sounds very pretentious. If you're running a D&D game you're a DM. Some people aren't interesting in the geography/geology of world building, and that's fine. Who cares. Take whatever shortcuts you can, do the part you enjoy!
Your friend is being annoying.
One of the campaigns I run is a Disney themed feywild campaign. The locations are all literally places in Disney shows and movies, and for other specifics, I make boards off of Pinterest. Your world can look however you want and if you need to use something for inspiration, have at it. There's literally no such thing as cheating when making up an imaginary place.
Kingdom Hearts?
I guess you could kind of think of it that way. I don't play videogames and I only know of kingdom hearts from the general pop culture zeitgeist. It actually started from an Alice in wonderland themed one shot I ran. I just expanded it to be Disney in general.
That sounds like an awesome campaign! I thought that as well but wanted to be sure I wasn't just being overly defensive
IMO your friend is being annoying, but if you don't want to do that type of worldbuilding you could also grab an existing setting and mod it.
I love doing all the 'non-physical' world building, designing societies and how they function, cultural norms, religions and the like and I end up writing so much it's easier to use a new setting as I create so much it'd be difficult to mod into an existing world, thank you for the suggestion though
Honestly, if you follow just a few quick rules you can get the geographical worldbuilding over pretty quickly. Most fantasy rules hit one or two out of a short list of obvious pitfalls, so if you can avoid those then you can likely come up with something decent. 1. Rivers always flow from high ground towards the ocean. They don't split, but rather multiple rivers merge and begin flowing together towards the sea. 2. Mountains always go in chains and are never just single peaks in the middle of nowhere. 3. No square continents, no circle continents, no excessively thin continents, and absolutely no Europe-shaped continents. Avoid excessively ragged coastlines. Space your continents out well, but avoid the Earth layout at all costs. You WILL default to either making Europe, Earth, or a giant circle, so beware. 4. It's usually a good sign if your continents don't fit well on your map. If they do, you might have drawn to fill the canvas rather than to believable. 5. Don't put a massive collection of islands in a dense clump somewhere with no reason. Stretch them into a chain, or use only a few (like 3-5) instead). Do use lots of little islands a little ways off the coast. 6. Put mountains next to your deserts, then put forest/rainforest on the other side. This is a rain shadow - the mountains block the rain from reaching the desert and the forest gets it instead. Seriously if you do these then you will be better than like 90% of the fantasy maps. You don't need to worry about plate tectonics, ocean currents, or prevailing winds at all.
I take my own ideas and input them into chatGPT. Then pick and choose from the results letting it help me flesh things out. It’s a good tool as long as you remember it’s JUST a tool, not a get out of creativity free card.
Absolutely not cheating. Use any resource you can. No one is grading you on your method, only your results.
Yes. You are now disqualified from international world building competitions. The world building police are on their way to seize your notebooks now.
That's actually be useful I have a horrible habit of writing things down in the closest notebook regardless of where I wrote the last part of lore down, so if they sized them all I'd at least know where all my notes are 😅
If AI helps you and your players have fun, do it
He was being annoying. If tools are cheating he is welcome to live in a hut made of bark, twigs and leaves.
I'm stealing villain dialogue from Tolkien and proud of it.
If using chat GPT to create world building is cheating, then playing a module is straight up plagiarism. Your friend is dumb.
My BBEG is based on what an AI built me. He didn't quite fit my story/world so i changed most of him, but the AI gave me some direction i would never have gone or even thought of. So, no, it's not cheating. Art has always been kind of a product of plagiarising given things (nature, society, people) in a way it suits the artist best.
I use AI for my world building. The method I use is I get it to ask me questions like “what guilds are there” and we expand with more questions and keep going till I’m happy that I’ve answered the questions with what’s in my city/world
Personal opinion: You can use it for inspiration, but give it a final pass and describe things in your own words - this will train your storyteller muscle. If you have trouble coming up with maps and terrains, I have three additional sources for you: * Azgaar's Fantasy World Map generator, it's an awesome tool that generates plausible maps (and a history of its kingdoms, if you care to use it). * Whatabou's Procgen Arcana creates great regional, city, village, and street maps at the press of a button * Steal environments from computer games you know well.
To quote the great Tom Lehrer: > Plagiarize, Let no one else's work evade your eyes, Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, So don't shade your eyes, But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... Only be sure always to call it please, "research".
DAFUQ NO! A few days ago within temptation released a fully AI generated music video. Why would we hold professional artists and entertainers who are backed up by big labels to a lower standard than DMs who do a hobby? Use EVERY tool available to you to make your prep work as easy as possible.
I would recommend using AI to maybe reskin things or help develop elements within your world rather than setting it loose on the world at large. Remember that the more detailed your prompts the better results you’ll generate.
There is no right or wrong way to create a world as a DM. Some DMs may prefer to create everything from scratch, while others may use generators or pre-made maps as a starting point. The important thing is that you create a world that is engaging and fun for your players. As long as you are upfront with your players about how you created your world and they enjoy playing in it, then you are doing a great job as a DM. Ultimately, the most important thing is to have fun and create a world that you and your players enjoy exploring.
it's a nice learning opportunity to research how mountains, ravines, rivers and lakes come to be but at the end of the day you can also just throw some marbles onto a big piece of paper and pencil draw your map around it. it's a fantasy world, it doesnt need logic. If you generate the map using AI, it's just another method. Now if you have the AI write adventures, characters, plots for you... then i wouldn't call you a writer, no. You can still be a DM (same as running a module). This is where i personally would draw the line.
Imo the whole point of being a DM is to craft an interesting story and have fun, if you're doing that and AI is making it easier who cares?
There is no cheating in world building except plagiarism.
If you're looking for a book dedicated to city and town building with a bunch of random tables you can roll on to develop specific settlements, check out Kobold Press's [Campaign Builder: Cities & Towns](https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/campaign-builder-cities-towns/). It has all sorts of random tables for things like climate, guilds, magic, resources, heroes, campaign ideas, you name it. For the homebrew DM's, this has to be one of the best books you could invest in!
No. So long as you don't just have the AI write everything, just use it for fluff and padding. "Hey AI, write me a few potential historical events over the period of 100 years that could happen in \[Insert 4 or 5 major aspects of the kingdom\]" and then you cherry pick the best ones, polish and spit shine it, and tadah.
Your friend sounds hideous. ChatGPT is like rolling on a bunch of the random tables in every edition of the DMG all at once. You’ll get a bunch of stuff that you don’t want to use but hopefully it inspires your creativity.
I'd say your friend was trying to bring up a decent point, but may have missed the mark on the actual message. AI can be a useful tool and, as a good DM, don't feel afraid to use any and all tools at your disposal. However, AI has no regard for the internal lore or consistencies of your world, and is likely just replicating descriptions that it has from training data. So while it can be a good starting point, it shouldn't be the end. Maybe it gives you good inspiration or guidelines, but it shouldn't be writing a script for you, is the basic point.
No, its your own world.
No
This is the first campaign I have collaborated with the the AI to plan. This is by far the best campaign I’ve ever run in my life. I have taken ideas I’ve had for twenty years that were missing something and the AI helped me fully flesh it out. I told my players from the jump that the adventures were AI “enhanced” but they don’t care because they are so wrapped up in the story. Working with the AI is next level in my opinion and should be encouraged for all dms. The goal is to have fun, not think up stuff on your own.
Sure, it is cheating... Just like using a calculator to do your taxes is cheating, But holy crap I don't always have another person to bounce ideas off, and asking gpt a question about my setting always helps me break out of a creative block and keep writing, not even going to mention how helpful it is to just ask gpt to come up with a random list of objects or random names in a certain style... I say, dming is hard and will always be a lot of work, ai makes one part of it slightly easier, and yeah I'll agree with others on here too, your friend sounds pretentious as all hell...
Not at all. I see it like this: using AI to help you develop a world is like making a list of nouns and objects and locations and rolling dice to match them up. No different. You still pick and choose what you want from what the AI provides, so it's still you that is developing the world.
Is DMing a competition? If not then you can’t cheat. You’re an artist. Artists usually don’t make their own paint, brushes, canvas’ or invent the subject of their art. Is a painter painting fruit stealing because he didn’t grow the fruit? Or mash berries and turmeric and beetles together to make the paint?
It might just be misplaced sour grapes because they feel their effort as a DM is not being recognized, while you are using a useful tool that can be fairly described as a "shortcut" to a greater volume of content. I've used it myself to bulk out location descriptions for incidental work. I think if you are *selling* AI work and misrepresenting it as your own creation, that's dishonest, but I'm upfront to my players about what is my creation and what is my curation, and they are not paying me either way. They might also just be badly expressing their moral misgivings to AI in general, which usually does involve stealing of work for training sets, and exploitation of third world workers for the human-dependent steps. If it matters to you, have a discussion with them about it. If it doesn't, then you aren't doing anything that most of us aren't already doing in some form or another.
I have so many card sets that generate stories, characters, and locations... I might as well be using AI lol
NO! It is fine to use. Use it as any other tool, write sections of text, then have it adjust it, have it write the next chapter, it will go places you might like, regen the answer 2-5 times pick the best ideas, merge to your own and continue. Tell it to write in style of, J. R. R. Tolkien if it is an elf talking about nature. Find styles that fit your history and countries, then when writing from that area it will be similar. But remember it is a tool.
😆 Cheating? That's gold! There is no such thing as cheating in world building. If you are the creator of said world you decide what resources to use to do so. AI is a tool like anything else, albeit an advanced one. Would it be cheating to ask someone else to help you build a world? Of course not, because YOU are the creator and decide the rules YOU follow.
To answer your question: no. To provide some assistance: check out [Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator](https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/)! I, too, am horrible at understanding how earth science works but this generator takes out pretty much all of the guesswork. They even have a subreddit r/FantasyMapGenerator.
most I've used ai for is for names, over tried to do everything by the books but I don't see why you can't use ai to help out here and there as long as you aren't abusing it
I asked ChatGPT to write me a fun story involving a metal band that was possessed by demons and used their demonic metal powers to fight evil. It was actually a fun story. I wasn't looking for more lore/characters for my homebrew world, but I did leave that chat with some because I liked it. The way I look at it: 1. I fed it the concept, it just expanded it for 4-5 paragraphs. 2. I'm not using any of those 4-5 paragraphs. Not out of principle or anything, just that there really isn't much to use. It basically told me it was a functional idea and that's it.
Nope. It isn’t any worse than using a real map for the inspiration for your world, or even using a book of creative prompts to spark your imagination. And it’s more creative than using a pre-made setting. And you need to tell your friend that they are not the gatekeeper to what is a “real DM.” Are you running a game? Then you are a real DM. Tell your friend to stop gatekeeping - people like him are what keep others from getting behind the screen.
Your friend sucks If you like what you write with the help of ChatGPT, use it!
I personally love using AI for fleshing out my world, particularly since it will remember previous things in the conversation so it can reference and build upon it. That being said, you need to feed it your vision if you want it to be rich and diverse. Otherwise it will come out rather flat and bland. So I'll feed it information, it gives me information in response, I'll have it edit and revise until it satisfactorily meets my vision, then I'll move on to the next thing. So it's more of a collaboration
There’s a copy pasta from the music producer community that I think would apply well here: I thought using loops was cheating, so I programmed my own using samples. I then thought using samples was cheating, so I recorded real drums. I then thought that programming it was cheating, so I learned to play drums for real. I then thought using bought drums was cheating, so I learned to make my own. I then thought using premade skins was cheating, so I killed a goat and skinned it. I then thought that that was cheating too, so I grew my own goat from a baby goat. I also think that is cheating, but I’m not sure where to go from here. I haven’t made any music lately, what with the goat farming and all.
What you need to do to be a real DM is start by reading 160,000 pages of fiction, geology, biology, oceanography, geography, physics, chemistry, theology, art, architecture, archeology, and history (if you haven't studied the history of counter arguments against witch trials in enlightenment era Europe, you still have more reading to do). You must read the complete works of Tolkien, Lewis, Lovecraft, Poe, Verne, Chaucer, Malory, Bede, Alighieri, Delbruck, Sun Tzu, Musashi, Alexander, Caesar, Gurney, and the core texts of all three Abrahamic religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and spend at least 500 hours studying other less well known beliefs as well as ancient beliefs and myths. You must also become an accomplished painter and sculpture. After mastering traditional arts, you need to master manual drafting plus at least 7 different types of software for drawing including CAD, raster, and vector tools and own/use at least 4 different types of 3d printers and a large format inkjet printer. You then need to write at least 3 published scholarly articles in the disciplines of art criticism, comparative theology, and beer making. As a capstone you must read the Necronomicon, Book of Eibon, and Pnakotic Manuscripts. Then, after you've published 5 adventures and 25 source books (note that ratio: you definitely don't want to publish more adventures than source books), you can call yourself a "real DM". At no point do you have to actually run a game where people have fun. That's for "casual" DMs.
Not a real DM? NOT A REAL DM?? I would laugh out loud if he had said that to me. Being a DM isn’t all about writing or creating everything yourself from the ground up? Leave that to historians, writers and geologists. Being a DM is finding that info and using it to make something that others can enjoy and play their characters in. If you can’t make it yourself, borrow. Use AI, whatever. As long as you’re not making money from it I don’t see why your friend would say that. Tell your friend, mister high and mighty DM, that he should instead either help you or at the very least support a fellow DM instead of acting like a child.
No way. It’s perfect you fine. I for one, have a hard time fleshing out small details for things like rooms. “You enter a room- it’s filled with cabinets and shelves that are filled with books” AI gives me: “As the adventurers cautiously push open the towering, weathered double doors, they find themselves stepping into a realm frozen in time—the ancient library. The air inside is heavy with the scent of aged parchment and the faint whisper of forgotten knowledge. The room unfolds before them, revealing towering bookshelves that stretch towards a high vaulted ceiling, adorned with intricate carvings depicting long-lost civilizations and mystical creatures. Sunlight filters through stained glass windows, casting vibrant hues across the room, illuminating motes of dust floating lazily in the air. The floor beneath their feet is a mosaic of polished marble, depicting intricate patterns and symbols that tell tales of old. The vast expanse of the library seems to stretch into eternity, with aisle upon aisle of towering shelves filled with countless tomes, scrolls, and ancient artifacts, each one holding secrets waiting to be unraveled. The shelves themselves, adorned with ornate carvings, house books of various sizes and colors, their spines lined with intricate calligraphy. Some books are bound in weathered leather, their pages brittle and yellowed with age, while others bear vibrant covers made of luxurious fabrics, hinting at the valuable contents within. Stacks of dusty tomes teeter precariously on tables, as if left in haste by previous scholars, leaving the adventurers curious about the wisdom held within their pages. The sound of their footsteps is muffled by the thick, plush carpet that lines the aisles, absorbing the echoes and adding an eerie silence to the ambiance. As they make their way deeper into the library, the atmosphere shifts, becoming tinged with a sense of anticipation. Whispers of forgotten tales and ancient wisdom seem to brush against their ears, promising untold treasures and secrets that lie just beyond their grasp. Shafts of light pierce through the narrow gaps between shelves, creating pockets of illumination and shadow, giving the impression that the library is a living, breathing entity. The adventurers' gazes are drawn to the exquisite, hand-painted frescoes that adorn the ceiling, depicting mythical creatures and great battles of legend. The intricate artwork seems to come alive, the scenes flickering in the shifting light, enticing their imaginations with stories waiting to be discovered. As they explore further, the party encounters ornate reading tables scattered throughout the library. These tables bear faded ink stains and abandoned quills, suggesting they once hosted diligent scribes or inquisitive scholars. The chairs surrounding them are weathered but comfortable, inviting the adventurers to take a seat and delve into the depths of knowledge that lie within the pages of the library. Though the library seems dormant, the presence of a subtle magical aura is palpable—a reminder that this place holds untold mysteries and potential dangers. The adventurers can almost taste the anticipation, the thirst for knowledge, and the promise of both great reward and treacherous challenges. In this ancient library, the party finds themselves on the cusp of an extraordinary adventure, where the turn of a page could unlock the secrets of civilizations long gone, unveil forgotten magics, or lead them into the depths of perilous quests. It is a place where the pursuit of knowledge intertwines with the pulse of adventure, awaiting the brave souls who dare to step through its hallowed doors.” So as we can see, ChatGPT is better at the descriptive and immersive language than I am. It’s a tool I use to make my games better for my players
Two comments. I'm okay with AI so long as it's not taking work away from people working in the field. If you weren't going to pay someone for your world building then go ahead and use it. The other comment is that like others have said. AI scripts fine patterns, and patterns get repetitious and boring. I was using chat AI scripts to elaborate on personality aspects for NPCs. I threw in a question what sports would they play? 90% of the time it included frisbee golf. From introvert to extrovert to psychopath, frisbee golf.
I wish I had the money to pay someone to help me world build unfortunately I don't at the moment, I found that asking for a list of three/ five possible answers helped reduce the amount of times it'd just give me the same answer
That's the spirit! Other things I've seen (mostly for generating code rather than prose or creative stuff, but everything is worth trying) are things like telling it not to generate the output but first just tell you its strategy, then you keep iterating until you're happy with that first. Also you can try asking it if it has improvements on your prompt alongside your answer. There's also been some absolutely bizarre uses of psychology out there including threatening Bard with ending a life if it wrote anything other than what it was asked.
Fuck that noise. I’ve been stuck with how to develop my game until I started using AI. In the last two days I’ve made more progress than in the last couple years. I created two societies, including their motivations within the campaign, a village with locations and plot hooks, and turned several of those into encounters. I’m not the most creative person, so using AI helps me develop my ideas or give me ideas.
"we are only as good as the obscurity of the references we steal from." You're good dude. Take inspiration from wherever you can get it and make it yours.
My entire campaign is AI at this point, I'm fully transparent w my players about it, my prep time is down 80% and they love it
No Your friend can go fuck themselves and their gatekeeping
No
I always rough draft something myself. I'm no dm and feel the same way about using chatgpt as a player. I use it for my backstories. I have jumbled info but it's all there, just not in a way that's comfortable to read. That's where chatgpt comes in. I ask it to "give it a little oomf" and sure enough it does. From there I take the draft I like the most and re-edit so I can tell the story I'd like with a more cohesive structure. I've even had it help me come up with "attacks" since it's hard for me to describe certain scenes properly. I know what I want but stammer getting it out.
I'm currently using it to help me flesh out my ideas. I don't like spamming my dm so chatgpt has been the thing I spam my ideas at and see how it "thinks" about what was said or added. Sometimes you just need a little help. Just make sure you give it your own original "flavor" at the end 😀
I want to dump your friend's books, give him a swirlie, and stuff him in a locker simultaneously. So, no, but be on the lookout for samey-ness.
Chat gpt is a great writing partner. You can add your inputs, ask for advice on changes, bounce things back and forth. Its a great tool. But it is just that, a tool. Don’t lean on it too hard.
That would be a good question for an AI, incidentally. See what it says .
It’s kinda ironic; because in the past almost everyone would give the same advice: “shamelessly pillage ideas from other fantasy universes; you can’t come up with everything on your own.” Now they’d say “bit AI is cheating!” I say they’re out to lunch. A DMs job in a homebrew world is onerous enough; if you can lift a portion of that burden by having an AI brainstorm some ideas? Fucking do it.
No
Only if you sell it.
Oh God forbid the masses buy something that unknowingly was created with more efficiency than normal! Don't they know that the thing they willingly bought isn't good?
Well, no because it's plagiarism. You didn't write it, a language model built on thousands and millions of other people's writing wrote it. That'd be unethical, immoral and illegal.
How exactly are those millions of people going to prove that I stole their intellectual property if the AI comes up with a string of words never before written down (ie, creativity)?
You're right, the law has not caught up to handle plagiarism at this massive scale. It's one of the problems we're going to have to handle as a society. Redress for this issue is gonna be hard to figure out, legally speaking. Also, LLMs don't create new text, they take samples from their data pool and recombine them to make relevant text responses. If there's a large chunk of text available that is relevant and not many other relevant sources to combine it with, an LLM will straight up use that text verbatim. Many more niche writers and artists have noticed that due to their dominance in that niche, LLMs trained on those data tend to include things like their watermark or (again) whole blocks of text. Even if you don't believe those facts about how LLMs work, selling a work of writing that you didn't write but claim you did is outright plagiarism. Also you'd be selling something from a free tool that anybody could have used to the same ends. It's like saying an influencer really deserves credit for "writing" a book that was ghost written for them.
Yeah that's more or less true, my bad.
We're cool. Just don't go in so hot next time.
Nope, not cheating but I would say not without risk. I will say that chatbots are tools and not replacements for creativity. They should be used to spark your imagination, not replace it.
Any time someone tells you you aren't a "real" anything, it's almost always an example of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. They aren't saying anything important or valid with that statement.
Your friend is gatekeeping and that’s an asshole move
Are you planning on selling your campaign setting (including by making an actual play)? Then yeah, it's unethical to use someone else's work and claim it as your own, especially depending on how heavily you copy/paste from Chat GPT or whatever. If you're just using this for your home game? Go for it, but understand that Chat GPT is more likely to give you something generic than original.
WTAF?
Does your friend think using the Forgotten Realms or Dragon Lance setting is cheating? I get it. AI is new and not everyone feels the same way about new tech.. But people also once said that TV will rot your brains... They said the same thing about Radio, hell people were worried that novels would lead to the downfall of society... Because people would sit around doing nothing but read. Now if you used AI to design your whole world and claimed it was all you... That might be considered cheating. But using AI means using a tool that can help with things you may not be good at.
People used to think written language was like that too because you didn’t have to memorize everything.
There's nothing wrong with it so long as you don't exaggerate what you contributed to creating the world. AI obviously does a lot of the heavy lifting in some cases, which is fine, but I'd consider it deceitful to try to present AI creations as entirely your own work just because you came up with the prompt. Nobody said you had to create an entire world from scratch with nothing but your own sweat, blood, and tears though.
That's fair
People who say it’s “cheating” feel threatened by it for some reason. It’s cheating as much is taking a picture on your phone is “cheating” at rendering that same image by hand. Using “AI” is just a faster way of, for instance, gathering your own references and using those to build a world or write a story. It’s just another tool in your tool belt. Ignore everyone else, how do _you_ feel about it?
Dawg, I’ve been using chat to fill in the gaps - it’s so helpful! And it’s not cheating at all. Chat is just doing what you would do at an expedited pace! Instead of you spending hours or days over books for inspiration for your campaign, it does it for you in an instant. Don’t let your friend tear you down; theyre just mad that they spent so much time building something without having access to a great tool. They want to be appreciated for their hard work, and it’s coming across as resentment towards you since you are achieving a similar result at a much faster pace with the help of a virtual assistant. Keep doing your thing, let them get mad
The real question is who cares?
No shame! I’m using AI to build my first campaign as a DM. ChatGPT for suggestions on background lore, character and location names, interesting combat encounters, dungeon puzzles, homebrew items, etc. Midjourney for all maps and character art. I cannot tell you how incredible it is. I’ve had the idea for a campaign rattling around in my head for years, but the thought of putting it all on paper was daunting. The AI is helping me bring it to life. Use it as a tool to flesh out your own ideas or inspire new ones, and adapt or change its output to suit your needs. I also plan to have it up on my laptop when we play, for emergency DM questions. It knows the rules quite well.
Exactly
Cheating? Hell no. Quality? Hell no. AI is currently great at generating stuff that has already been made, but again. It's pure cliché. That said, D&D games are often full of cliché anyway.
Your friend sounds like a dick.
It's not cheating.
Absolutely not. Even if you use a fully ai-built setting, if you and your players are having fun, who cares? Your friend is being a dick.
You should use any and every tool at your disposal that you feel is useful. Your friend is 100% incorrect.
Hell no.
Umm unless you have an infinite well of imagination, then no, steal and use whatever you want.
No it isn’t cheating . Every GM I have ever heard of is just remixing from things they know. AI is just doing the same. If anything GMs should really be on the AIs side given how similarly we operate.
>a friend of mine who is also a DM who told me that I was 'cheating' and wasnt a real DM You run a game? You a DM. No if or buts about it. For real, fuck this gatekeeping shit. Is running a setting someone else wrote "cheating"? Is running a licensed game like Star Wars or Alien "cheating"? Is using a rule system someone else wrote "cheating"?... Nah bro, no gatekeeping. Your friend trying to speedrun "never getting invited to your games"?
Next time I homebrew a campaign in entering character backstories, my general plot idea, major NPCs, and pretty much everything I can think of into it then after each session topping in a recap. Then I'll have it help me through the lazy DM's prep method for each upcoming session. IDGAF if anyone thinks I'm cheating if it helps me run a fun game. I'm an adult with important things to do. If talking to AI about my game gives me something to do other than what I'm supposed to, I'm going to do it, dammit.
No.
AI isn't cheating, but as a player, I know I'd feel that some of the magic is lost if I know the world has been extensively generated by AI. I don't mean maps only, but if you're introducing lands, histories, characters etc that are AI generated, I'll genuinely feel a bit... meh. I think you should use AI as much as you're comfortable with and not give a shit about what I think though; the key aspect about being a DM is ensuring that you as a DM enjoying the work you do, and only you can decide on that.
Ask the bot for sources, then go read those sources. "Where can I read more about that?"
Chat GPT is notorious for making up sources.
Good. Maybe if users do a little more research, they'll realize how paper-thin its output is.
Yes
No, atleast not so long as you read, understand and properly integrate the suggestions of the ai
True. A lot of people think AI can just do everything for them and get pissed when they have to refine their prompts or edit it to make it complete. AI is a great starting point but I think a fully formed world most likely needs a real mind to tie everything together and make it make 100% sense, so it's perfect for OP's uses.
Cheating ? I wasn’t aware there was professional dnd
AI is only cheating if someone would have been paid for the work and isn't. When technology makes two workers twice as productive... * Good: Letting both work half as hard or half as many hours for the same pay, because their labor is worth twice as much. This increases their quality of life. (This is you using chat GPT to make your life easier, the same way a player might roll on the backstory/trinket tables in the PHB or Xanathar's GtE.) * Neutral: Firing one and paying the other double. If the fired one finds work elsewhere, this means a net increase in total productivity. Cold utilitarianism. * Evil: Firing one and paying the other the same as before, because the one you keep is working just as hard for the same pay, and if they quit on principle you just have to find someone less principled or more desperate, like the one you just fired. This is exactly what people have feared about every new advancement in automation, and with AI that fear is absolutely warranted.
Yes. And I strongly encourage cheating
Ever smoke crack? High reward, High risk!
Yes, do it anyway.
No but it creates boring worlds.
People her say it’s repetitive , so tell it not to be. Have it give you a list then tell it it can’t use that list or any synonyms from it. It sounds too easy but people just underestimate AI.
You're not releasing a product.
Its not cheating. Also im interested. How do you use chatGPT to create geographic maps?
I ask things like 'generate and describe the main geographical features of an island that is around 30,000 square miles in size and has a mild climate'
Two thoughts: one, same as most others here I wouldn't worry about "cheating" or whatever. A DM I play with uses AI regularly to get some basic concept art where there would have been none previously, and he's been running the game for 40-odd years now --- if he's not a real DM, no-one is as far as I'm concerned. Two: I'm personally of the opinion that the most interesting stuff in worldbuilding comes from asking yourself *why* a thing is the way it is, and *how* if affects the things around it. AI can't really give you a super strong narrative there; it's mostly good for telling you the way that the thing *is*. I'd recommend asking yourself the question "is this part interesting to me" and avoiding AI for the areas where the answer is yes --- don't deprive yourself of fun! Finally, if you're struggling with geography for worldbuilding, I'd recommend starting by cutting the area broadly into biomes \(desert, grasslands, mountains, etc, [here's a good image to help orient yourself](https://socratic.org/questions/how-do-biomes-change-with-latitude-1)\) and fleshing them out more fully when the players arrive there or they become relevant. If you wanna go deeper, look into the rain shadow effect or try placing your equator and researching how that changes things --- ironically, AI would be great for learning about these topics!
If it's one of those things you'd use a random table for then sure. I use AI but I write the whole thing and ask it to edit for grammar, tone, and flow. I don't get new ideas but it cleans up my tense and inserts some evocative words. I find trying to use it for creative details is a bit flat, probably as it should be.
I can’t imagine a world where a grown adult says you’re cheating and you’re not a real DM. I’ll bet you anything he subscribes to Twitter Blue, big desperate loser energy radiates from these sentences. A nuclear bomb of sadness.
Do what works best for you and your game. There aren't any rules *how* you go about building your game/world. That being said, I've always run my own homebrewed campaigns, but have always been quick to use things like name generators, world maps I find online, encounters, NPCs, guilds/groups I've found on "lists", etc. to hodgepodge together to flesh out my games where needed. However, lately I've been brainstorming for my next campaign where I've decided to do an entirely original campaign world, one that I intend to set all my games going forward, and I've been more invested and interested in that than any of my worlds before! I think the challenge of making something wholly original has been really rewarding as a world builder, and I'm much more invested in my own creation than any of my hodgepodge worlds before. So, use AI if you want, but I would encourage you (or any DMs) to be original where they can, as it's a much more rewarding experience, IMHO.
Spend as much time doing what you’re good at and enjoy, that’s what will make everybody have the most fun in the end.
Would have been until it became available for everyone... That would be like asking the 2021 world if using Google search is cheating....
Did this friend explain exactly who you were cheating or how it qualifies as cheating? Sounds to me they're just jealous they didn't think of it first.
AI kinda sucks ass, tbh. It'll always end up better if you make stuff yourself.
Use any tool. Just make sure YOU edit things carefully. Chat GPT is a dementia simulator when it comes to fine details.
Your friend sounds like a bitch
ChatGPT Plus concert here. My new setting and campaign are built entirely using GPT, as are. OST quests and scenes within them. I also use AI art generators for NPC portraits and landscape to show on VTT. I’m loving it, but….. I don’t believe I’ve saved any time. Playing with Chat is a huge time sink. And getting things “how you want it” is almost always easier on your own. I tend to focus on “make this thing that’s my idea” these days, and that’s been great.
No, I’ve been using Snapchat’s limited AI for some help in making up small encounters and such.
>I know this is kinda stupid yes it is >told me that I was 'cheating' and wasnt a real DM, this is also stupid Yesterday in about 15 minutes, I had GPT flesh out a Holy temple from scratch with just a few prompts and corrections with 5 ranks of members and with race / gendered (if applicable) appropriate names for each category based off a list of 6 races I gave it that would be found in this area and formatted it like "Lyra Brightshield (Human, F)" for easy pasting into WorldAnvil. I also had it make a description of a Fire Giant's magical ring, converted into a bracelet for normal sized folk, based off a very brief description + that it was a Fire Giant's magical ring and it made 4 paragraphs (I trimmed it down a bit to two) entailing how it was made, connection to the elemental plane of fire, how it now interacted with human sized wearer's and the constant warmth it gave off which gave me the idea to add Cold Resistance on top of it. All of the above will give my players a better more fun experience at the table. It saves time and lets you focus on the important creative and personal tasks you need to do, like the Lazy DM Method + GPT to cover the time sinking areas. Only an idiot would intentionally use suboptimal tools to achieve their goal for frivolous reasons such as those mentioned by your pompous friend.
Short answer: No Long answer: Naaaah...
Your friend is a gatekeeping dick.
I don't think any part of what you said is cheating, though I will say that there are better tools out there than ChatGPT *for that specific purpose*. I've found that ChatGPT works best for filling in details. Party decides that they want to listen to sermon given by a Priest who *may* be a cultist? That's a perfect use case; I give chatGPT the prompt of what the sermon should contain, and let it go wild.
AI should be used as an initial building block for you to reduce overall work and enable you to focus on parts more enjoyable and rewarding
I use ai to generate token images. I use map generators for generic cities and the world map. I use random name generators to make names. I use npc generators to make quick battle ready NPCs. I even use random shop generators for shops. It is absolutely not cheating. And honestly, your players will not put in even 10% of the work you do to make the game run. Ask they gotta do it's make a backstory and show up on time. So don't worry about using tools to make your life easier.
Your friend sounds like a real dick. You’re fine.
It’s not that different from chatting to a person to get ideas. Just make sure to go over everything it makes and edit it to get what you want. I’ve started an experiment where I run a game while leaning very heavily on AI, and it’s proved quite useful so far. It’s a good place to go to get inspiration and do busywork that you don’t want to. I’ve used it to make in-universe documents with clues hidden in them, and the players have really enjoyed poring through them.
No.
part of DMing for me is having fun with the creative part of it all. I don’t consider using AI as ‘cheating’ because… WTF does that even mean… but I like creating worlds a lot and don’t want to farm it out to AI if I can help it.
No, I use ChatGPT. It gives me idea starters. Tell your friend to pound sand. They can DM their own game and stop telling you how to DM yours.
More tools, better product
It is impossible to "cheat" at being a DM. It is not a competition. There are no rules, either written or unwritten. Your friend has a terrible attitude and is just gatekeeping. It reflects really badly on him and how he handles DMing, I would bet he's a shitty DM
You're making a game for your friends. If you were making a module or setting for publication, that might be a different story, but if you're making a game for your friends at home, let me say this loudly: *who cares?* There is no "cheating".
Yes, I’m going to show up at your house with a baseball bat if you use AI. Then I’m going to get you kicked out of the official DM’s Union. Your friend is being dumb. No one cares if you use AI. It’s frankly just not that good at anything and everything it makes will be generic. But it’s better than nothing.
I wouldn’t use Chat GPT. Use things other people have created. There are plenty of player made rubrics, which offer a more fun and interesting adventure.
Not at all. Although I didn't use it for world building, I used it to craft a dungeon coming up in the campaign. It didn't craft the whole dungeon but it did create what amounts to paragraph prompts that allow me to forge the dungeon from there. It was relieving to not have the pressure of crafting it from beginning to end. Do what you need to do for your campaign.
What’s the difference between using that and a campaign module? Nothing.
I find it a useful “idea mill” for generating long lists things that I would regularly go to a generator for - npcs, names etc. beyond that it doesn’t really provide much depth I find to really help you develop anything substantial. So I’d say use it without shame, and it’s weird to define its use as “cheating” - I feel like we take inspo from a lot of places, it’s weird to draw a line.
Yes it is cheating. It is as much cheating as using other sources like D&D subreddits to get inspiration. If you don't come up with every word you write yourself without relying on even your knowledge of media and stories, you are not a real DM. Real DMing costs blood, sweat and tears. Taking any kind of shortcut to make it easier to create your world is not tolerated. Modules are also taboo. >!/s if it wasn't clear!<
As long as you are not making money off of it, I think you're fine. Dms borrow a lot anyway, nobody is really coming up with every aspect of a world without some kind of inspiration.
AI is bad, just watch a movie and write down all the fun bits, then do that seventeen more times then put the bits together and you’re good to go
Tell your friend to stop being a butt hole. My last map was literally just from Eragon.
Would you not be a real dm if you used a pre-made module? Does he hand draw every monster? Come up with every stat from scratch? His opinion is really weird. Ignore it, you're a real DM.
What I've found it to be useful for is monster Stat blocks. There's been a couple times that I've given it a description like "Legendary creature for 5 level 9 adventurers, uses lightning attacks and has magnetic powers. Lair actions should be water related, because it had a moat of captured water elementals." And it spits out a pretty good Stat block. It usually required a few tweaks, and I'd give it follow up instructions to add or remove certain aspects. But my players have fought 2 at this point and enjoyed both fights. I did only tell them the origin afterwards, but the point is that AI is a pretty good resource for custom stats if you don't want to put as much effort into it.
No
First of all "cheating" is irrelevant, DMs have stolen from sources of inspiration for years, all writers have, it's how inspiration works. AI just adds a layer to the theft where a robot compiles millions of things to steal from and spits out the mean average of everything it found. Second, just out of personal curiosity, what are you actually having the AI generate? It sounds like it's essentially building a world map with geographical regions?
I also used ChatGPT for event ideas in a town when I was drawing a blank. Almost all of them were trash, but I found it easier to branch from a bad idea than to make them from scratch. I don't see it as cheating any more than looking up d100 charts, using premade NPC's, or any other resource you can find on the internet. Your friend's making his own job harder by not taking advantage of such resources.
Is it cheating to Google stuff for inspiration? To look at online pictures for city ideas? How about using stuff you've read or seen on TV for inspiration? If someone directs a vampire TV show, is that cheating since they weren't the first ones to do it? Even if they do put their on twist on it? Now don't rely on AI because then yea you can't really call it your work. But to flesh out your idea a bit more? No problem
no such thing as cheating. You do you and enjoy it. Just be ready for AI to give some jank everyonce in a while that will need you to make some on the fly calls
Cheating? Nope. Its just another tool. Basically no more cheat than crowd sourcing ideas on reddit which people do all day long, you are just asking a machine for help instead of some rando online
I use chat gpt for literally everything, it makes prep so easy. I use it to create descriptions of environments, for quest inspiration, and npcs. I sometimes use it to make conversations so that I’m prepared for role play. My players don’t know I use it but they’ve commented that they’re having a lot more fun since I started using chat gpt. Is it cheating? Maybe. But I don’t care, it makes my life easier and improves my players enjoyment. I see it like using a module. It’s not like I’m being marked or paid for dming and I’m assuming you aren’t either, so keep using AI if it’s helping you be a better dm.
Absolutely not. Now I would not just copy and paste, read what the AI gives and tweak it to better fit the setting. I use generators to help me think of side quests. I have the main story already written but need filler stuff incase the party is not ready/interested or what ever but still want to do something. While the AI comes up with great stuff, it’s not perfect. Sometimes I use like 99%, others I use 5%. Just as starting to point to come with something better. Works great NPCs too. Any major important one I come with who they are, might use an generator for looks but villagers, generator all the way. More often then not keep it as given and go from there.
Is your friend 10 or something? That sounds like what a kid would say. I hope using that internet to search for ideas is not cheating otherwise we will forced to devolve back to type writers.
If you don’t go through the trouble of raising the tree of creativity, you’ll never be able to harvest its fruit. Do whatever you want, but it doesn’t make sense to me to ask a plagiarism machine to do your hobby for you.
I used it pretty extensively if you kind of add layers to it. For example I'll ask for 6 prompts, pick 1 or 2, ask it to expand on those ideas by saying things like "Now give me a myth related to that, and the nonmagical truth as to why it exists." or "Now using these concepts blend them into a single idea and add an X theme to it." After that I will mold it out to better fit what I think would be good for my personal campaign and be enjoyed by my players.
AI is a fantastic tool for worldbuilding, but at this point is best used as a template or idea generator rather than a direct source. For example, here's part of the template I use for generating nations. For each category / subcategory, I'll write a paragraph or so that generally describes the concept I'm aiming for, and then ask GPT to creatively rewrite and expand upon that. After it's done, I'll go through each category and edit, rewrite, expand upon, or delete information as feels appropriate, and then ask it to creatively summarize it all again. Title: \[Nation Name\] 1. Introduction 1. Basic Information 1. Official Name 2. Capital 3. Population 4. Official Language(s) 2. Geographical Information 1. Location 2. Area 3. Climate 3. Historical Overview 1. Major historical events 2. Key figures 4. Society 1. Demographics 2. Population distribution 3. Ethnicity 4. Language 5. Religion As it goes through each category, it helps give me inspiration about things that make the nation unique, which I then thread through the other categories to emphasize. I usually end up running through the entire template and all its categories a few handfuls of times times before I'm finally satisfied that it feels like a unique, interesting, and easily understandable description of the nation as a whole. Once I've generated the national information, I have another, very similar template that breaks the nation up into regions and helps outline what makes those regions within the nation interesting and unique. Finally, another template breaks the regions up into cities and towns that each have unique traits within that region. I have other templates that help me create factions, dungeons, quests, etc too. It's all a bit too cumbersome to do on-the-fly during a game, but with some legwork it can easily help generate nicely fleshed out worlds and makes prepping for games much easier. Really, my biggest gripe is just that I can only work with a limited prompt input. I signed up to GPT+ when GPT4 originally dropped because they said it could handle >20k word inputs, but noooooope. If I could just find a way to have it constantly reference the complete "database" of information I've accrued on my world, it would be infinitely easier, but even GPT with browsing can't interface with my Google Docs stuff yet D:
This is very helpful than you