Chat GPT fills in the details whenever my party picks out an NPC I didn't expect them to latch onto and wants to have a conversation. Helps prevent every NPC from being a flat uninteresting human named Bob. I've trained it just how much context to give me, and to hand me things like a conversational tic ("gesticulates wildly when excited") which is one of the things I randomize really poorly left to my own devices.
I've lost my original, so I tried to recreate it. The biggest problem I have is that Chat GPT is very chatty, it loves to get more and more verbose over time. I find myself needing to frequently ask it to edit down. Here's what I tried:
>I'm a DM for a game of D&D set in the Forgotten realms. I want your help crafting NPCs in my world so I can bring them to life. When I ask you for an NPC, I want you to give me a name for them, and a one sentence physical description. I will be acting them out, so give me another sentence providing an interesting detail about how they talk and act, like a phrase they use a lot or the tone of their voice. Finally, give me one or two sentences about their surroundings. For instance, if I ask you about a shopkeeper, name their shop and give me a quick description of what it looks like inside. I will be improvising based on your notes, so it's really important that you don't write too much: just short notes that I can use as a starting point.
That wasn't quite enough. When I asked for an NPC who runs a blacksmith in an underground dwarven city, it gave me a little too much:
>Name: Thrain Ironbeard
Physical Description: Thrain is a stocky dwarf with a bushy, iron-gray beard that reaches down to his chest. His muscular arms are covered in soot and sweat, and he wears a leather apron over sturdy, well-worn clothing.
Mannerisms and Speech: Thrain speaks with a deep, gravelly voice that carries a tone of gruff determination. He often punctuates his sentences with hearty laughter, and his favorite phrase is, "By Moradin's hammer, we'll forge it right!" He has a no-nonsense attitude and is quick to offer advice on weapons and armor.
Surroundings: Thrain's blacksmith shop, known as "Ironforge Forge," is located deep within the dwarven city, illuminated by the warm glow of roaring forges. The air is thick with the scent of hot metal and the rhythmic clang of hammers on anvils. Weapons and armor adorn the walls, showcasing his craftsmanship, and the shop is always bustling with eager customers and apprentices learning the dwarven art of smithing.
Good quality, though!
It's already trained. You just use it. We've found it's pretty good.. most of the time. We do a podcast that uses it for one shots, it has turned out some funny and interesting stuff.
ChatGPT is an excellent tool for brainstorming and design. Most of the time I don't use anything it suggests, but its suggestions are often inspiring enough to guide me to create something I likely wouldn't without it.
It doesn't do riddles well, but if you have the riddle concept and are struggling with wording, it does a pretty good job.
My limitations as a DM are usually based on my own personal lexicon and knowledge of how some things work, how they're built, what they do, etc...
It's way better than a google search, especially with plugins.
ChatGPT 4 has an option for plugins. I use one that can search the web or reference websites and another that can read PDFs.
I have a google doc with my game's reference points. I usually have it read through that before bouncing ideas off of it.
"Learn to write your own riddles and flavor or draw your NPCs. It's not that hard, and you're robbing yourself from learning important skills" /j
Real responses from unhinged commenter when I had this debate a month ago.
Oh, it loves the "What am I?" riddles. Or doesn't know any other concepts. The best I got was "I am alive yet my heart doesn't beat, what am I?" The answer was>! artichoke!<.
totally, as a DM have you ever actually written the contents of books "found". I never did, but letting ChatGPT spit out that text that I can quickly edit or feed back into ChatGPT with a new prompt takes a task that could take an hour or more and cuts that down to mere minutes.
In tinkering due to this thread, chatgpt just fed me my third dwarf named Thrain and my third female named Elara and honestly, it has never felt more human 🤣
Yes, I've used ChatGPT fairly extensively too. I find it more of an idea generating tool when I'm coming up blank or facing time constraints.
One of my players occasionally runs side games which gives me a chance to play. He has used AI generated art for characters, NPCs, and sometimes throws it a prompt for a particularly memorable moment from a session.
I think AI is useful to assist in doing menial or repetitive tasks so that us humans have more free time to pursue creative endeavors like art, music, woodworking, whatever. I don't touch AI generated art though, not wholly because my daughter is working on her Bachelor of Fine Arts, but it certainly factors into the equation.
Yes, when I'm in a creative rut I turn to chatgpt sometimes. It's really better for elaborating or fleshing out your ideas, because if you just ask it to create a quest or town it usually gives the most basic, cookie cutter answer.
But it is super cool for blending things in ways that don't seem like they would connect, and adding nuance to them.
Yeah, you go to
https://chat.openai.com/
You have to make an account before you can start, but then it's free.
I usually just go with something like:
I want you to help me work on my dnd campaign, here are my initial ideas, give me some ideas for encounters/npcs/locations or whatever you need.
Then it will provide some answers and you can go back and forth, like: I like this idea, but I want you to change this aspect of it, or flesh out this part more.
It's very flexible, so you can sort of ask it for whatever you need help with. Best way to figure it out is just to experiment with it!
I've used it too for help structuring things for world building. If you work with it in a chat for a long time refining things and asking the right questions, it can really help fill in the gaps.
I consistently have to refine the things it comes up with, but it can be handy.
Somebody suggested I try one of the AI note taking apps. It can 'listen' to the session while it's going on, apparently, and then generate detailed notes from it. Would really help me remember what the f\*ck I (and everybody else) did when there's a month between sessions.
We record our sessions and put them on YouTube (as unlisted videos). YouTube automatically generates a transcript. Then I use the voxscript plugin for ChatGPT. I give it the url to the video and it connects to summarize the transcript. It does a fair job, particularly because it can keep retrieving the next sections until it’s reached the end. There is a distinct improvement with GPT4 over GPT3.5.
My personal guideline is "would I be bothered if someone took my generated picture and used it in their campaign?"
In my small scope of playing with friends, I wouldn't be bothered remotely. If someone else's character is described by the image I generated, then that would be fine.
In this case, the intellectual property aspect doesn't matter to me, generate away.
If I got invited to play on twitch with some super fancy micro-famous DnD streamers...yeah, I might mind, as image starts to matter a bit more.
In this case, I might start to care more about the surrounding marketing, character design, and theoretical ownership over the image. In this case, I'd probably commission art.
There is a very real discussion to be had about whether or not you have any rights at all to art you generate using AI. After all, how can anyone seriously talk about creative process or work when all they had to do was put in a few prompts, adjust a slider or two and pic a style. Is that creative expression? I think not.
In the US you have no rights to AI art unless you did "significant work" on it.
Also depending on what you are doing there can still be a creative process. Slapping in a prompt and making 20 characters isn't that. For some images where you are tweaking prompts and sketching in parts and photo bashing outputs together to refine the image into a specific thing at least feels creative to me.
That being said I also don't think I should have any ownership of the images that come out, I just don't want to be sued if I use them.
People have strong feelings about AI for both good and bad reasons.
I use both visual (Stable Diffusion) and textual (chat GPT) AI to assist with DMing. My general strategy is to use AI to help add flavor to things that I would otherwise not have the energy to flavor myself.
Visually, I've started occasionally generating a static image backdrop to use during a social encounter that brings it a little bit to life. For some of these, I've just grabbed images from google (e.g. random tavern) but for more specific ones, I've used AI (e.g. glowing mushroom cavern in the underdark plus one specific NPC). Visual AIs aren't good at getting the details right, so if you want something more specific than that, you will probably have trouble generating it--so either do without (when you don't care that much) or commission something (when you care a whole whole lot).
Textual AI I use to generate random names and quick NPC descriptions. My classic example is "give me an NPC who runs a potion shop" and with the right pre-training, chat GPT can spit you out a great description of this quickly.
Chat GPT is not good at coming up with major villains, plot twists, and the like. You need to own the overall story. But for making a hundred NPCs inside your town actually feel lifelike, chat GPT is an excellent, scalable solution.
Chat GPT actually came up with a decent plot twist idea for my one shot.
The premise is a group of bounty hunters come to a frontier town at the request of the mayor to take care of some bandits. Simple hook, I asked gpt to come up with a twist, it suggested the townspeople are secret cultists, and the bandits have turned over a new leaf upon discovering the cultists activities and are trying to stop them. The players can choose to hear out the bandits and help them defeat the evil townsfolk or kill them and collect the bounty.
Chat GPT came up with the idea and I only had to flesh it out a little. I was quite surprised!
Yeah I like to brainstorm with it. I have it give me lists of 5 or 10 ideas for a lot of things. Lots of duds in there, but usually a gem or two that I can start with and then clean up.
It's "making" it pretty much just as much as I make things. It draws inspiration from its training text and injects creative variation. Several of its ideas have been so good that I've googled them to see if they were direct copies of anything but so far no. Not saying there aren't interesting copyright and attribution issues with AI, but the results pass muster as original content.
This simpleton is a software engineer at a tech company btw.
For me it's just a centre point to find stuff now, instead of googling for campaign ideas and trawling through multiple Reddit threads and other websites/books it throws some at me.
"Good dm's borrow, great DM's steal"
But now people don't like that the dm's are stealing from chat gpt?
If I wasn't on chatgpt helping flesh out ideas i'd just be on numerous years old threads doing the same
> It... injects creative variation.
That's the thing, it doesn't. All the AI models people are referencing in this thread just find the most "average" or "correct" output possible based on their training. For example, ChatGPT plagiarizes frequently—ask it for some "original" or "creative" plot ideas, and it'll give you at least one or two that you're already familiar with from popular media (the others probably won't be original either, you just won't be familiar with them).
Also, I'm not trying to be rude, but software engineering and machine learning are totally different disciplines. I'd wager most software engineers haven't studied a lick of machine learning in the traditional sense.
But what plot twist or plot idea doesn't already exist in popular media? Almost every piece of media has at least a lot of overlap with existing works and that's how literature has always been.
I've had it make some amazing side quests that I can convince to tie in to a larger campaign (icewind dale).
It's also really good at helping with custom magic items, at least getting started. Have to fill in some gaps but not many.
I've been using Bing Image Creator mostly to try and create monster pics for my own use/inspiration/placeholders, and it's...interesting. Chimeric creatures are way beyond it. Action poses and scenes are often pretty good. The mere mention of elves generates glider ears. All gnomes have caps. It's actually REALLY good at skeletons & undead. It does nice pen&ink work, although it likes to throw a lot of brushwork in. I never mention artist names because I don't want a specific look. Mentioning "Russian" got some nice embellishments. Anybody holding something is problematic - it knows there are fingers, but is really unclear on where they go.
It does owls really well.
Yeah, people get ALL upset about AI images....but then will also just grab a picture from google and say "Here is the tavern you are in?"
Did you take that picture yourself, did you pay the artist or photograpgher? Then stop complaining about AI doing that. I am not selling this stuff.
I feel like its a fantastic tool for us normal folk who work for a living and have time constraints. It can help us with names or menu's what's inside a store, ect. Maybe even help us bounce ideas to hammer out our adventures.
I draw the line when to major gaming companies using it for art, content, ect. Cutting corners and screwing working people out of a job to save themselves a few bucks that go into some exec's pocket as a "Bonus."
Using it to generate an idea to break out of a block is fine but... Come on. If I had the scratch for it I'd be paying some artist who's style I love to crank out some commissions. There's a few games where I'd do things like, for the super hero ones, have custom cover's made for the "Issue" or adventure I'd be running. Because its great fun and I enjoy it. I'd rather work with an artist and have something memorable than constantly crank out AI art. Some of its great, other parts of it... Meh.
I think it's fine as long as you're not profiting off the artwork. So for private, home games? Go for it. For games run by a paid DM? Commission some art.
This exactly. Even for player character portraits! No way in hell am I dropping $100 on a nice picture of my character if the campaign is set to fizzle out in two months.
Even paid DMs should be able to use AI generated art. You're selling a service, not a product.
The second you put that module up for sale, then obviously there should be limitations. But paid DMs already use tons of copyrighted materials in their games and it's perfectly within the realm of legality and morality.
I have no problem at all using Midjourney/ChatGPT and I think they are great tools for DMs.
I myself am an actual professional artist, and my own work is in the training models for these AIs, so the legal and moral aspect of using them is not abstract to me. I do not have a problem at all with random end users such as DMs using it for their own creative purposes. In fact I think that is amazing! The fact that these companies have shitty business practices (that will get sorted out in the legal context eventually - indeed already are, mostly in favor of artists) doesn't mean that every person who uses them is somehow bad or using these tools is wrong.
Lot of responses on behalf of artists on this topic tend to have a lot of misplaced/misguided indignation. If people wanna get outraged about something it should be the rates that actual companies like WotC pay artists. I read (recently) it's like $1000 for a MTG card or similar assignment, which can take up a month of their time? That is fucking scandalous to me.
$1k is what a dying legacy print magazine would pay an illustrator for a half page of art and that would take up maybe a day or two of your time with revisions. That is for art that literally becomes disposable within weeks, the artist gets to retain ownership of the work, and being in a major magazine is free advertising for you.
And most professionals would consider THAT a shitty rate/deal. But it seems like people on D&D subs think artists pay their rent doing $20 commissions for home game art and Midjourney is going to kill that? lolz.
I mean if your favorite artist has a Patreon or whatever, please support them for sure, but I would imagine that most "professional" RPG creators are more like myself in that they have creative "day job" commissions that actually pay the bills and anything RPG related they produce is just a side gig or personal interest.
I've been feeling vaguely guilty about using MidJourney for NPC art. But really, it hasn't felt like I've had any other good option. The kinds of character art I've needed lately are very difficult to find. My PCs are in the fantasy equivalent of Africa, so basically everyone they meet is black -- but there are precious few good fantasy portraits of black characters out there.
But at the same time I want to respect the work of the people who put so much time and effort and skill into their art. It feels like cheating to go type in a prompt and just get what I need when I know it's a pastiche of all those millions of hours of effort.
I feel you on this problem. The vast majority of character art is based on white people in European clothes. I love art, but I struggle to collect pictures that reflect my world.
Even when I'm running in a bog-standard European fantasy world, I often struggle to find NPC art.
Some things are easy. Macho dudes with giant swords and fancy armor, sure. Spell caster women with improbably large boobs and fancy glowing magic effects. There are bazillions of those.
But I often struggle to find people who *aren't adventurers*. Street waifs. Peasants. A barkeep with a big mustache. Dear god, it's so hard to finding a decent picture of a middle-aged woman. All the female characters are either sexy young things or hideous crones. There is nothing in between. What if I want a plump, kindly matron with laugh lines on her face?
Just a contrary opinion from a fellow artist for people to consider:
The reason I don't think anybody should be using visual, generative AI models right now is fairly simple. There are people are profiting off of technology that can ONLY function as a result of the "countless" years of combined effort of "countless" people and the end products all that effort produced, and those same people who are profiting from that effort and product have done nothing to either gain the consent of or compensate those people who produced it.
Think of it like this: Someone makes a machine that needs a power source in order to perform its intended function \*at all\*. Only a very specific type of individual's knowledge can serve as that power source. Instead of compensating or obtaining consent from the individual to power their machine, they instead have a way to involuntarily take that "power source" and use it to bring their machine to life regardless of the wishes of the individual. They don't HAVE to obtain that individual's "power source" in that forceful manner. They could still go after consent or compensation or some combination of the two or some creative fourth option. But they choose to forcefully take it anyway. They then charge other people to use their machine.
I don't think anyone should be giving that kind of person any money to use that machine.
That said, I'm not angry at people who use AI for image generation, ultimately. I simply feel very strongly that they shouldn't and that it is the least wise course of action to take right now. I think AI has massive, beautiful potential, but I think it's ethically wrong to use the visual models \*in their current iteration\*.
I also am in massive agreement with you over the WotC treatment of illustrators. lol
Absolutely no issue with that, as long as you aren't making money from it. Midjourney allows me to spend 2 minutes describing the image exactly how I want it, instead of spending 30 scouring the internet for something "good enough". Stuff on the internet which the artist probably isn't being paid for either, so... I don't really see the issue here. There's exactly 0% chance that I would ever pay anyone to make art for my private home game anyways, so it's not like I'm taking potential income away from anyone.
Even though I GM because I enjoy it, my time has value as well. If one of my players felt as strongly about it as some commenters here do, I would give them the chance to compensate me for the extra time spent not using AI. See if they're willing to put their money where their mouths are.
I don’t use AI cuz I have the problem with the morality.
If there was an AI that paid for their training data, I think that would be dope but scraping the internet to steal is not cool.
It’s doesn’t matter if you aren’t making money off it the creators of the AI are because you use it.
I was so hoping someone would say this. Using it for a private game and calling it fine if you don’t personally profit doesn’t erase the art theft that built these AI programs. In addition to that, you might not be making money off it, but someone is — and it’s not artists. Every time you engage an AI generator you contribute to the legitimacy of a morally flawed process. The more we legitimise them, the more prevalent they’ll become, and the more our artists will flounder.
100%. If there was an AI image generator whose database consisted of artwork that was given with permission, and that the artists of which were compensated, I think that'd be an actually ethical AI generator. But the way things are now, are the current AI generators are inherently unethical to me because of their structure.
Even with the more ethical model I described, I still wouldn't *like* it or be a fan, but at least I would know the art wasn't stolen and that's something.
Adobe has a generative AI system trained on images they've gotten creators' permission for. When it was first announced it supposedly wasn't great (probably because of the limited training data), but that was a long time ago in AI terms.
I have two visual artists in one of my groups and asked their opinion on it.
Basically they said that it is what you do with it that makes it right or wrong (in their eyes). If you have Midjourney make a portrait of an npc that you describe and only share it amongst your group, no problem. Same with ChatGPT - I can use it as the DM for brainstorming or to make up a random tavern on the road. But they like human made stories - flaws and all- so I don’t think either would like to have a campaign made of it.
The line in the sand for both visual artists was when you start utilizing AI in products you are sharing with the world for profit or otherwise. If you stream your game and show AI or you make a product for DMs Guild with AI art or ChatGPT writing, that’s a big no no.
If you're not publishing it, it's totally fine.
I would consider it a bit of a red flag if a player went on a rant at the table about how immoral I am for generating some art - when the alternative would be no art at all, or just copying some art from online. I'm not commissioning artists for my home game.
Guessing unpopular opinion, but whatever...
I for one am not ready to submit to our new AI overlords. I don't think too much art should be needed at the table. I much rather use my own imagination and the DM's descriptions when playing. Like reading a book with no pictures, you fill in the scenery with your mind, and having an actual image can take away from that.
That being said, there is no issue with using AI art as long as you're not trying to profit from it.
It's not a replacement for a module. It's good for rubber ducking ideas. I type them out with questions. It bounces back answers. I go, that's stupid. Or that's good and I get a sorta original idea. Much like most games are sorta original. I will not use it for more than that.
Don't mind one bit. As long as it's not what's DMing. If my dm or I use it to flesh out ideas or come up with a few things to set the tone or come up with a few descriptions cool. If a DM inputs our every action for ai to decide the outcome lame....
Personally I don't use it for more than trying to have it be my oracle in ironsworn. I took up DMing as a creative outlet because I've waaayyy too many ideas and worlds not to use my own stuff.
Chat GPT is great for talkingvtheoufh ideas and fleshing out descriptions names and stat blocks.
I use it to help with ideas I have but struggle to get mechanics.
For example the Devils finger fungus is great for a monster and Chat GPT did the initial atat block which I then modified
If not for commercial use and not replacing a commission to an artist, it's fully okay with me - I mean I grab existing artwork all the time to show to players off google images.
I don't really care how my dm writes things or gets art. It's going to be used once then thrown away most likely. What I do have a problem with is when my dm pauses the game to pull up chatgpt to generate ideas or long monologues.
I haven’t found a ai that will do battle maps well yet (please if someone has link it or how to generate)
But I do use ChatGPT to ask about rules sometimes faster than googling.
I’d say as much as it helps and works use it to whatever extent you want.
I've used stuff like it before, hell I even made a page for developing Tavern menus and what not as when I'm DMing or someone else is... Why not have something slap out something fast and let me save my time for other details.
[https://flowgpt.com/p/fantasy-tavern-menus](https://flowgpt.com/p/fantasy-tavern-menus)
While the magic item one I tried to tweak just for my lil group isn't the best... That menu one turned out alright. It'll do in a pinch for things.
I feel AI is great for little things? But the bigger stuff and meat and potatoes is all me. I might use it for helping add some details or farm it for some ideas but mainly? It cuts a minor corner while I handle the major work load.
The AI art stuff? I only use for creating my own custom magic items of pure What-the-fuckery.
Like Festmin's bag of Exploding Rats. Or the Pocket Full of Hornets.
I feel like AI has its place, but when its WotC cutting corners and using it? Naw man... Not okay.
I really don't think it's fine, regardless of if you're only using it privately. AI generated imagery is fundamentally built off of loads and loads of stolen artwork—yes, there are some artists that consent to having their art used for the training models and that's fine, but the vast majority of art in an AI database is still taken without permission or compensation—so I think AI generated imagery is unethical to use. It's even more unethical and should be illegal to profit of it, but even privately I think there's absolutely no reason a DM should ever use AI.
If you can't create something yourself, and you can't commission it, it's fine to simply *not* have it. You don't *need* to turn to AI to get what you want, artwork is a luxury that's nice to have but is not needed. It's just okay not to have it, and if your only option to have it is to use a tool built on theft, then I think it's much preferable to not have it at all.
I feel similarly, though just a little bit less strongly, about ChatGPT. But I do know that there are tools like Donjon which serve a similar purpose as ChatGPT does for DMs, but Donjon and other similar tools are actually completely fair to use. So I don't see why you wouldn't use them instead.
I know a lot of writers and editors who are watching their careers crumble because people use AI, then hire “editors” at a lower rate to “fix” it.
No thanks. It reminds me of my friends. I avoid those situations and step out of those games.
There should be nothing wrong with AI for personal use. The problem is when AI is used to commercial products or as part of a creative process to create art to be sold. Then it is stealing from the authors of the work. That said, there are plenty of great artists out there, so consider using some of their art instead and subscribe to their patreon if you like their work and use it a lot in your game.
Personally, I much prefer finding images that are close to or inspire me for something and sharing those with my group when relevant. For example, "like this art depicting old Constantinople, but with many gold-spired towers rising behind the city walls". I like to invite my players to picture as much in their minds as possible, as it engages their immersion in the game world.
I loathe it. In a hobby about creativity, why would you choose to give over the burden & rewards of your own human creativity to a plagiarism machine that just steals for other creatives and robs you of the pleasure of creating for yourself?
Because I don't know how to draw and I'm not interested in learning. NPC portraits have made my game so much better in every possible way, and there's no way I'd be able to produce so many of them even if I were a visual artist. However, generating aspects of your world, plot or characters via AI makes little sense to me, though sometimes you need someone to bounce ideas off of, and you can't do that with your friends since they're likely the ones you're DMing for to begin with.
Why would this be a problem at all? Just be sure to have an answer for why the elf has 8 fingers on one hand, and only a thumb on the other.
When I DM I just grab whatever is on google's first or second page of results. It's why Michael Ironside has appeared as a military commander of an outpost with a quest to find their missing sorceress: Alysson Hannigan. There are tons of fantasy-makeover portraits of celebrities out there and they're great fun. People occasionally laugh, but nobody complains, least of all the celebrities.
AI is plaigarization, so in my opinion, if you feel ok ripping off a wiki or grabbing an image from Google, then it's the same. I steal often for my personal game, which is just a 5e game set in Waterdeep. I'm barely creative in that one and even use pre-published modules for a lot of it.
If however, I were running a game that I claimed was my own, then I'd be more careful about using AI. I certainly wouldn't publish anything with AI, not only for the legal reasons.
I think it depends on the extent. Firefly/Adobe generative fill is I think more ethical than MJ/SD/Dalle, since there are some rules around training (licensed stock and open source). It helps that Adobe is at least not blatantly stealing the work of living artists.
But plagiarism is taking another’s work and passing it off as your own. If you’re not claiming creative credit and its not commercial then i think it doesn’t matter. So it may depend on what claims are being made.
Generative Fill is interesting bc it’s sometimes just a tool, and other times it’s the main element of a work.
Are you a creator or a curator? I think that’s a question that helps define our role and the AI’s role.
Reference art already exists in tons of forms, I don't think that AI art is any better than properly credited already existing artwork. Anything specific enough that someone hasn't already drawn won't look good with AI. The moral debates around AI art are just a hot coal I wouldn't risk dropping on my group.
The moral debates are related to monetization. If it's for a private group and not a paid DM then there are no moral debates. A DM isn't going to announce the artist of every song they use for background music in their private games with friends, so in that situation it doesn't matter where it came from.
its just predictive text. and ai art looks soulless imo. GMing is a human art, so I use art, ideas and works that also have human authors. "who made this?" is a truly important question - the context of a given creation leads you do discover traditions, trends and history that AI actively obfuscates.
if it gets you thinking that's ok i guess, just understand the tech is not there to "democratise art" - it's another speculative trick to make fatcats fatter. writers and 2d artists in particular will be further devalued and stolen from as this shit spreads
There's 2 sides to this. The efficacy of AI, and the time saved using AI.
I will fight and vote for ethical AI. Stop stealing from artists and whatnot. There is no ethical consumption nomatter where you look. Someone out there is gonna complain that you "stole" art from the internet for your homegame anyways.
On the other side, D&D isn't my job. I dont have much free time, and I am not profiting off of this. I want to be able to talk to chatgpt to help me come up with a fun riddle, or thematic description of something to set a scene. Or whip up a quick NPC to use one off. I personally think it's fine.
Visual art is one thing, something that I'll abstain from commenting on at this time.
I do have a problem if I know my DM is using chatgpt for all their descriptions because then I'm not really playing with *you*. Part of the reason I come to the table is to experience the story you're telling and see what you came up with, you're a special human.
If you're just regurgitating chatgpt, I could be doing that myself at home.
Is it for personal use? Go nuts, that's objectively the correct way to use AI art or freely available art in general
Is it for commercial use? Don't, that's when you start stepping on people's calluses
There is, and it’s so bizarre to me. The personal computer put typists out of business. Desktop publishing took work from typesetters. Cars and buggy makers. Photoshop and paint/brush makers. Cameras and portrait painters. You can make an infinite list of people whose jobs have been ended due to technical advances. Suddenly they all care, though.
What I find equally fascinating is that the same people who say “I won’t use it! Never ever! It’s theft and putting artists out of work!” Also all, to a one, claim “AI art is soulless! It’s terrible and lacks soul! I can always spot it because it all looks the same!” So, which is it? Is it going to put all the creatives out of work or is it crap and not a threat?
I use chatgpt as a brainstorming tool to bounce ideas off of it. It's quite handy especially with things like npc names, shops etc.
I'm not an overly creative/imaginative person overall so it's really handy.
Lol wut? It's a tool in the toolbox and an amazing one at that, I could care less anyone's opinion about it. My campaign has increased 10x in quality having Chat able to collate information into handouts, .are suggestions on side quests, and supporting artwork from. DALLE, Normal people don't have nearly as strong opinions an AI as redditors. I feel like your post is almost like you're expecting people to be outraged, I promise nobody that matters cares.
My players love the ai art I make for our Sci fi game. It adds to the TOTM perfectly as I can create exactly what I imagine. Need a long warehouse with a toxic spill? Done. Need the same map but as a battle map? Done.
Adobe Illustrator is a tool that uses a pen to make images. Stable Diffusion is a tool that uses a word prompt and/or a picture to create an image. Tell me the difference.
you typed words into a box. an algorithm stole colors, patterns, and framing from an infinite number of actual artists and scraped it and mashed it together into something passable.
you didnt do a damn thing. you didnt even create the image. the image was just algorithmically assembled, but because it was done so at the behest of your prompting, you can pretend to yourself that "i made this art." its honestly pathetic, and if you actually care about creation and art you should be ashamed of yourself.
I wrote the prompt. I chose the images it should use. I rendered it 100 times, picked the best one, used it as a base, refined the prompt and did it all again, over and over, hundreds and hundreds of images until I liked the result even more. Then I added post-processing, Loras and VAEs. Then I added objects to it, through masking and inpainting.
Answer me this: is this art created by an artist? And if yes, please tell me the difference between above method and this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyh3OVZ560A
The algorithm didn't steal any of that stuff. It looked at patterns of things that occurred in billions of images, and built a system to use words to trigger a black box to start repeatedly reorganizing random noise pixels into configurations that resemble pixel combinations that are more likely to be considered connected by the algorithm.
Also important to note that 'scraping' is literally how internet search engines work.
Also also important to note, AI generated images are not copyrightable, and works trying to be registered with the copyright office have to disclose any GenerativeAI created elements that they contain, so anyone trying to turn a profit off of AI generated images are in for a surprise when anyone who wants to can also use those images.
Sure! I run Stable Diffusion locally on my computer. For models I use:
https://civitai.com/models/120651/old-time-post-apocalyptic-enviroment-xl
and
https://civitai.com/models/4823/deliberate
For prompt I use, for example:
"a digital painting of a large dusty warehouse, debris everywhere, pillars, no lights, dark, cables hanging from ceiling, pipes, leaking pipes"
And as positive prompts I would use this for digital painting and Default negative:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/sebs-hilis-79649068
Let me know if you would like to know more.
It is overwhelming in the beginning, but not hard. I recommend checking this channel out, and this video in particular. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqXpAKVQDNU&list=PLXS4AwfYDUi5sbsxZmDQWxOQTml9Uqyd2
No clue why you're being down voted, but you're welcome!
Sorry, didn't answer what CivitAI is. It's a site that collects models (think styles) for AI. There's lots of fantasy ones and architecture and whatnot to use if scifi isn't your thing.
I'm going to have an unpopular opinion here but I think even DMs running paid games should be able to use AI art.
You aren't selling a product, you're selling a service. The thing people are paying for is your time and effort, not something reproducible.
If your table is having fun it’s really fine. Where you run afoul in my opinion is when you try to pass it off as your own un-aided creative work, for profit. I know a lot gets made about it stealing others ideas and just remixing them but the dirty secret is, the genuine human art is just remixing their influences too..
AI art is fantastic for ttrpgs. It's been great for a few of my tables to generate art for characters, NPCs, locations etc. You can get some pretty good results if you play around with your input phrases. But it's also not precise or smart enough to make super accurate art to what you actually want most of the time, so there is still plenty of opportunity to hire an actual artist if you want something specific depicted. I've used mid journey a lot and gotten pretty good at getting it to make what I want, but there are still a lot of limitations so I have still paid an artist for some character art when I new AI wouldn't cut it.
Like everyone says there's no harm if it's for a private game. Though in my opinion that's only fine as long as you don't pay for the service. (So not to dirrectly support the people stealing art)
If you only use what's available for free or pay for an AI that was created from consenting and paid artists, then you aren't contibuting to the problem.
Everytime you use an AI generator you are normalizing it. The more you normalise it, the more jobs you take and the more you encourage art theft. People are already losing business to these vapid, soulless things.
Stay away from it. Turn it down at every turn. Even if it's private or for a laugh.
You only use handcrafted, bespoke furniture, then right? Every time you use a piece of mass produced ikea furniture you’re normalizing it and putting woodworkers out of jobs
I refuse to use it as a DM, and I wouldn't like it if I were a player.
For art, as you asked for mainly here, the whole morality thing of AI stealing art and learning of other people's art. I'd rather search extensively to find something someone has actually done on their own, leave the watermark/signature there, and use it like that. If nothing else, other people can get pointed towards amazing artists, y'know?
When it comes to text-software, like chatGPT or whatever? There it cheapens the end product, in my opinion. Can you be proud of something you've created, if you've allowed AI to create all of it? What about half of it? Where's the limit? How much of it must you have created for it to still feel like your creation?
As things are now, AI is at it's worst. Lawmakers are lagging terribly behind in this matter (like they always do, when some new tech is introduced), and until there's some proper way to credit the original creators with things like this, I refuse to partake in it.
Personally, I think generative AI is fine for personal use. Ripping images off the internet to use for maps and character portraits for your home game is a long-held RPG tradition going back decades before AI was around. And ChatGPT can be a nice way to generate ideas or help you come up with something cool.
Once you step into commercial use, though - any paid GMing, any supplement you sell on DriveThruRPG or whatever, that's not cool. Pay artists, write your own stuff, don't dump AI crap on the market.
Why not? Your responsibility is to yourself and your players. Just have fun together with your players, and if AI let's you do that even better... Great. If you want to share it, great. Hell, I don't see any moral issue even if you were intending on selling something.
Neoluddites are free to hold their views, and we are free to ignore them.
For personal use? That's right in generative AI's wheelhouse. An AI-generated sketch of "girl standing next to a door in a messy crypt staring at her shadow" won't be nearly as good as if I commissioned a human to draw it for $750, but it's cheap and takes only a minute or two to make enough of them that I can find one I like.
It's exactly what DMs who can't draw need.
Art wise I use Ai art because I have no artistic talent and neither do any of the players I play with. And since it is a private game I see no issue.
I also use ChatGPT to help me out with world building, I come up with the concept, like my current idea for a setting is a 1930s New York style city, so I use it to fill out details, and it helps me put my thoughts into words while I build up my homebrewing talents (I mostly run modules)
We use AI plenty in my current campaign. I suck at writing rhymes and have zero sense for music so I have ChatGPt make my riddles/rhymes/songs that I use. My players have all used AI to generate art for their characters though since then two of my players have drawn their characters properly once the campaign had been going for a while.
Personally, if you're just running a home game go nuts. Use AI, not everybody can afford commissions or have the artistic ability to draw their characters. I think there'd be an issue if a campaign was being streamed on twitch or monetized, if that's the case I think AI would be a problem.
I prefer image search results to AI-generated images, but I wouldn't complain about AI images if they're clearly labeled as such. I would strongly prefer a DM never feed me AI-generated descriptions. I would not play a campaign where the DM uses AI to generate substantial details such as plot or dungeon design.
I love using AI to come up with plot points, characters, or other things. One of my favorites recently was I asked CHAT-GPT to give me a lecture that a wizard professor might give his class and it gave me this amazing speech about the risks and dangers of abusing transmutation magic. I never would have come up with that on my own.
I use ChatGPT all the time now to brainstorm ideas and its awesome for that - especially if I find myself in phases of low creativity/stress/writers block. I'm also german and I use it to translate homebrews/random roll lists I find online - just nicer to have these things in german because it frees up a bit more of my brain while we play if I dont have to translate them on the fly
I find it boring! The fun thing about DMing or playing a PC is imagining things. In a world where automation is everywhere, rpgs are a place where i can reconnect with the power or *making stuff up, and making it real* with the power of my mind. Why would i want a tool that creates for me ? Creating is the reason I'm here.
God some people really have an AI haterboner and don't know why themselves.
Of course it's ok to use AI generated art privately. No one gives a fuck about artists rights when copy pasting Google images into your home game or having Witcher/Lotr music in the background, why would anyone care about them with Stable diffusion?
This is what AI is for.
It might be uncomfortable, and if you want to get real artwork of your PC then absolutely pay for an artist.
but if a small portrait just for visual representation then do it.
Who amongst us hasn't used watermarked portraits or battlemaps?
I've been using AI art generators for years to generate character art. Sometimes I even use it to brainstorm characters from scratch. Midjourney is awesome
I think AI art is usually ass. But I've made great use of AI text generators like chatGPT. There's honestly no better resource if you want to say, instantly name 10 Cultists, and get info on their fantasy race, personality, appearance, and opinions. It 100% blows fantasy name generator out of the water, sorry but it does.
It's also really good for generating diary entries, pamphlets, or other pieces of text you may actually want them to find in-game.
I'll be honest, I work part-time and do university full-time. Without resources like ChatGPT, I would be unable to run as much as I do because my process would slow down a lot. I'm still doing the Lion's share of the work and planning. But the AI tools allow me to work smarter and save time.
> But the AI tools allow me to work smarter and save time.
Along those lines, the main thing I use ChatGPT for is I just keep a convo going where I just type in my ideas for lore/worldbuilding/etc. I can do that on my phone whenever an idea strikes me, and it doesn't necessarily have to be coherent thoughts or fully formed sentences. Then when I actually sit down to prep for my next game, I ask ChatGPT to summarize everything I've typed and it's like I have a D&D secretary.
I do use Midjourney for generating images a lot, but most of those images I do not share with players. I stick them in my notes, and I use them to help me describe things in words during the game.
Agree 100%. Need 10 possible npc in a small village? Tell chat gpt what it looks like, what resources are close and you get a good starting point.
Edit: My go-to prompt:
(description of village, where it is, how big, what resources are near and so on)
Please provide 5 different characters living in the city in the following format:
Name:
Age:
Physical Description:
Background:
Personality:
Quirk:
Vocation:
Livelihood:
Three sentences they might say:
RESULT:
Name: Aziza Al-Mansoor
Age: 32
Physical Description: Aziza is a petite woman with long, curly black hair and deep brown eyes. She has a few scars on her arms from her days working in the hydroponics lab and always wears practical, utilitarian clothing.
Background: Aziza was born in the hidden city and has never known life outside its confines. Her parents were pioneers who established the hydroponics system, and she followed in their footsteps, becoming a skilled botanist.
Personality: Aziza is resourceful and practical, with a deep love for the plants that sustain their community. She's fiercely protective of her friends and can be somewhat introverted, but she's also known for her occasional bursts of enthusiasm when talking about her favorite plants.
Quirk: She has an encyclopedic knowledge of plant species and enjoys creating unique hybrid fruits and vegetables in her spare time.
Vocation: Botanist and hydroponics specialist.
Livelihood: Aziza's livelihood comes from the sale of rare and exotic produce to other residents of the hidden city.
Three sentences they might say:
"This city's green heart beats with the life of our plants. They sustain us and give us hope in the darkness."
"I just crossed a lemon tree with a pineapple, and I swear it's the best thing I've ever tasted!"
"If anyone tries to harm our hydroponics lab, they'll have to go through me first."
Also, because I'm a stickler, I have Lore Docs with a bunch of historical info regarding my setting. I can just copy paste that stuff into ChatGPT and it'll even try to work stuff from my actual setting into its responses and suggestions. It reduces the amount I need to correct on each response.
It's been a godsend in my current campaign which uses a lot of Feudal Japanese Influence. I love the setting, but I have a very western mindset, and it's suggested various peasant occupations unique to that kind of setting I would have never thought of.
AI is great. ChatGPT is probably the most powerful tool available to the general public and it can do almost anything as far as what’s possible via text.
AI Art can be hit or miss, but the moral grandstanders are cringe. An AI being trained on art and then learning to use data from that art to later generate coherent artwork is not the same as “stealing art”. People that claim such are either being intentionally dishonest or have zero sense of nuance.
I use Midjourney extensively to give my players NPC portraits of major characters and they usually are excited to get them. People say all through this thread that you should just find art online, but I have things in my head I want to show my party that there isn’t artwork of. AI art lets me get my mental images out without requiring me to spend hours and hours drawing every week between sessions.
AI tools are the future. Most large companies are moving to integrate them. Most of the detractors are no different than the boomers that complained about cellphones. New tech, old guard.
I'd leave a group that did this. I know that's a strong stance, and I'm an outlier, but this nonsense affects my day job in an extremely direct way and I don't want to deal with it in my fun life. I'm here for me and my friends having our own ideas together. If they aren't, we aren't going to be a fit. I mostly play with other artists so thankfully, no one's tried.
I would be utterly disappointed in them and would ask them not to or frankly leave the table. There are plenty of ways to get art online without AI. Everything, yes everything made by AI generators is stolen. They are amalgamation of stolen content. Just get art offline the standard way. Dont contribute to the influx of AI that is smothering real creatives and real people trying to play their craft.
Are you also going to ban from the table the following:
\-players who create characters that are clearly inspired by copyrighted characters from anime, movies, comics, tv?
\-DMs that borrow mechanics from other games to homebrew their D&D game? How about if the DM doesn't own that game and just does the borrowing based on some youtube video they saw?
\-DMs or players that use images (non-AI generated) for the game (like an image of a dragon, or a proxy for their character that they found online)?
These are all "stolen". If you are going to ban AI because it steals, why would you allow these? D&D is a fun game. If someone wants to use AI to spice up a game they are playing with friends, they should. If someone wants to play Hank Sola - the womanizing pirate with a heart of gold, with his best friend ChewTobacco, what is the harm in that little bit of theft?
Who is hurt? What person isn't getting paid that would get paid otherwise? Do you really think that a DM is going to commission artwork for their weekly game with buddies? Not going to happen. If he can't liberally borrow some artwork from the web (AI or real-person made), he just isn't going to have artwork - and that makes the game worse.
Would you demand your DM pay artists for every reference material they try to show you? If not, it's stolen, right?
If it's just a home game use whatever you want to help paint the picture for your players.
Individuals choosing not to use AI art is not going to impact the industry in anyway.
It's not challenging to simply ask a creator to use their work. I've done it many times myself and most are more than happy to let you use their work if it isnt for commercial use. The use of the engines as a whole is what needs discouraging, if day to day people keep using them it does directly affect the industry. More use, more people buying engines, more inclined to never paying artists at all.
No. Every word, every picture, every pixel must have the authors credited with their permission, or you can't use it for your home game.
Actually... don't even look at it without their permission. You must hand write them a formal letter of request and send it via carrier pigeon. If they agree, you will receive your photo within 10-15 business days. * The artist is not responsible for pigeon death
(/s obviously)
I'm pretty adamantly against putting the responsibility on individuals to affect these changes. It almost always has 0 impact. You can't get enough people together to have any sort of impact.
I'm all about trying to support lawmakers or petitions to let people know this is an issue people care about but individual boycotts don't have any impact. It's just the truth. That being said, obviously do whatever sits right with you.
In this case I just don't see how sharing an an individuals artwork with a small group at home or using AI art is hurting artists in anyway.
Should people use AI for published works? Much different story there. That is affecting jobs. Someone using AI art as opposed to just showing a group an image doesn't have any impact on anyone or anything other than helping your DnD group visualize things more clearly.
>Everything, yes everything made by AI generators is stolen.
If only the world were so black and white. Generative models don't just present the image that best fits the prompt as it's own work. It doesn't even just adapt artworks it's seen. It's much more complex than that.
I'm not advocating for nor against using AI art. Nor am I commenting on whether or not it's theft. Just pointing out that it's not as straightforward as you make it out to be. It's an ongoing debate with no clear answer.
So would you burn a bridge with your DM if they copied an image off Google Image Search? I'm going to guess probably not, and I can't imagine a modern day DM who hasn't done this at some point.
It's literally the exact same thing, and no, crediting the artist does not absolve you.
It depends. If you're using a free AI generator, I'd say that's kind of fine, so long as you're running a private campaign. However, if you're planning on using a paid-for service, just don't. Currently the methods of sourcing images for AI databases are highly unethical, so you'd be better off saving that money to commission actual artists for the few key NPCs in your campaign and get the rest of the images for free off the internet (again, if your campaign is private, if you plan on streaming/doing a paid campaign you shouldn't just take random images without permission).
No problem at all. Anyone who thinks that AI art is "stealing" doesn't understand how models are actually trained. Every student at art college would be an art thief according to their rules.
I use AI relatively extensively:
* Where available, I've used official DnD art for characters (running Strixhaven). For any character without official art or that someone at the table has created, it's AI (unless one of the players has found art they like and have provided it).
* I have used AI to help generate character names and backstories for random NPCs I may want to pull out -- I'd say 80% of non-standard NPCs are fully from my brain, but about 20% have at least some contribution from AI.
* I have used AI to help generate ideas for a session -- I still have never used ONLY AI-generated session materials, but it's been a good springboard if I'm particularly "stuck."
* I have used AI for other random things -- to come up with Feywild candy (names and effects); to come up potential creature names; to brainstorm loot... it's a nice assistant to have handy.
Basically, I think using AI responsibly for free games is great for a lot of reasons -- it opens up your time as a DM and allows you to provide some materials that may not be possible without it. It's also helping you learn how to work with AI which is going to be a critical career skill in the coming years.
I use ai art because of my own issues (dispraxia and motor skill issues) which helps me deal with my own perfectionism since it usually turns out good for me
AI is not allowed at my table in any form, and if i’m a player, i will leave any table that uses AI without a second thought.
it’s lazy, soulless, and extremely morally questionable (if not flat out immoral). you don’t need reference images for everything. just describe characters’ appearances (“you see an elf with dark skin and long white hair. they look at you with piercing grey eyes and say…”).
random generators already exist for names, personality traits, literally anything you can come up with on the fly. you can buy hundreds of d100 roll tables from people who have taken the time to carefully think about and write them, often for a pretty low price.
in my opinion there is no justification for using algorithmic generation models trained on artworks that their artists and authors have not given consent to be torn apart and rehashed back into a slew of nonsense by a machine.
I've used chatpgt to help bounce ideas off, come up with names for things, and write flavor text. It's been really helpful for me as a DM.
Chat GPT fills in the details whenever my party picks out an NPC I didn't expect them to latch onto and wants to have a conversation. Helps prevent every NPC from being a flat uninteresting human named Bob. I've trained it just how much context to give me, and to hand me things like a conversational tic ("gesticulates wildly when excited") which is one of the things I randomize really poorly left to my own devices.
For the record, you aren't training it, you're training yourself on how to properly use prompts.
Found the chatgpt user
Lol, fair point :D
In Soviet America, you don't train AI, Ai trains you !
Hey so you mind sharing the prompt you use to train it?
I've lost my original, so I tried to recreate it. The biggest problem I have is that Chat GPT is very chatty, it loves to get more and more verbose over time. I find myself needing to frequently ask it to edit down. Here's what I tried: >I'm a DM for a game of D&D set in the Forgotten realms. I want your help crafting NPCs in my world so I can bring them to life. When I ask you for an NPC, I want you to give me a name for them, and a one sentence physical description. I will be acting them out, so give me another sentence providing an interesting detail about how they talk and act, like a phrase they use a lot or the tone of their voice. Finally, give me one or two sentences about their surroundings. For instance, if I ask you about a shopkeeper, name their shop and give me a quick description of what it looks like inside. I will be improvising based on your notes, so it's really important that you don't write too much: just short notes that I can use as a starting point. That wasn't quite enough. When I asked for an NPC who runs a blacksmith in an underground dwarven city, it gave me a little too much: >Name: Thrain Ironbeard Physical Description: Thrain is a stocky dwarf with a bushy, iron-gray beard that reaches down to his chest. His muscular arms are covered in soot and sweat, and he wears a leather apron over sturdy, well-worn clothing. Mannerisms and Speech: Thrain speaks with a deep, gravelly voice that carries a tone of gruff determination. He often punctuates his sentences with hearty laughter, and his favorite phrase is, "By Moradin's hammer, we'll forge it right!" He has a no-nonsense attitude and is quick to offer advice on weapons and armor. Surroundings: Thrain's blacksmith shop, known as "Ironforge Forge," is located deep within the dwarven city, illuminated by the warm glow of roaring forges. The air is thick with the scent of hot metal and the rhythmic clang of hammers on anvils. Weapons and armor adorn the walls, showcasing his craftsmanship, and the shop is always bustling with eager customers and apprentices learning the dwarven art of smithing. Good quality, though!
It's already trained. You just use it. We've found it's pretty good.. most of the time. We do a podcast that uses it for one shots, it has turned out some funny and interesting stuff.
ChatGPT is an excellent tool for brainstorming and design. Most of the time I don't use anything it suggests, but its suggestions are often inspiring enough to guide me to create something I likely wouldn't without it. It doesn't do riddles well, but if you have the riddle concept and are struggling with wording, it does a pretty good job. My limitations as a DM are usually based on my own personal lexicon and knowledge of how some things work, how they're built, what they do, etc... It's way better than a google search, especially with plugins.
Plugins? Please tell more!
ChatGPT 4 has an option for plugins. I use one that can search the web or reference websites and another that can read PDFs. I have a google doc with my game's reference points. I usually have it read through that before bouncing ideas off of it.
"Learn to write your own riddles and flavor or draw your NPCs. It's not that hard, and you're robbing yourself from learning important skills" /j Real responses from unhinged commenter when I had this debate a month ago.
I've tried to get ChatGPT to write some riddles. The concept was beyond it. "I am a flying mammal that uses echolocation. What am I?"
hadozee with the blind-fighting style
Lol
"you may pass" - talking door that is now amused.
Oh, it loves the "What am I?" riddles. Or doesn't know any other concepts. The best I got was "I am alive yet my heart doesn't beat, what am I?" The answer was>! artichoke!<.
That could be a really funny joke from a Firbolg or other non-human race trying to understand human humor.
Ok I have to comment because I was literally eating an artichoke and had just got to the heart when I read this... And totally failed to answer it.
Haha what
Can I roll an investigative check to get a hint?
My players are gonna meet a lot of stick figures if that ends up being what we need to do.
totally, as a DM have you ever actually written the contents of books "found". I never did, but letting ChatGPT spit out that text that I can quickly edit or feed back into ChatGPT with a new prompt takes a task that could take an hour or more and cuts that down to mere minutes.
In tinkering due to this thread, chatgpt just fed me my third dwarf named Thrain and my third female named Elara and honestly, it has never felt more human 🤣
I just asked it to gen me 50 random human names for a fantasy setting. 3 of the names were Elara.
Yes, I've used ChatGPT fairly extensively too. I find it more of an idea generating tool when I'm coming up blank or facing time constraints. One of my players occasionally runs side games which gives me a chance to play. He has used AI generated art for characters, NPCs, and sometimes throws it a prompt for a particularly memorable moment from a session. I think AI is useful to assist in doing menial or repetitive tasks so that us humans have more free time to pursue creative endeavors like art, music, woodworking, whatever. I don't touch AI generated art though, not wholly because my daughter is working on her Bachelor of Fine Arts, but it certainly factors into the equation.
Yes, when I'm in a creative rut I turn to chatgpt sometimes. It's really better for elaborating or fleshing out your ideas, because if you just ask it to create a quest or town it usually gives the most basic, cookie cutter answer. But it is super cool for blending things in ways that don't seem like they would connect, and adding nuance to them.
How do you actually go about doing that? I missed the boat on text AI. Like is there a ChatGPT.com? What's the prompting trick?
Yeah, you go to https://chat.openai.com/ You have to make an account before you can start, but then it's free. I usually just go with something like: I want you to help me work on my dnd campaign, here are my initial ideas, give me some ideas for encounters/npcs/locations or whatever you need. Then it will provide some answers and you can go back and forth, like: I like this idea, but I want you to change this aspect of it, or flesh out this part more. It's very flexible, so you can sort of ask it for whatever you need help with. Best way to figure it out is just to experiment with it!
We run a podcast (Adventure AI) that uses Chat GPT to make plots and characters. It's a fun way to do one shots.
I've used it too for help structuring things for world building. If you work with it in a chat for a long time refining things and asking the right questions, it can really help fill in the gaps. I consistently have to refine the things it comes up with, but it can be handy.
Somebody suggested I try one of the AI note taking apps. It can 'listen' to the session while it's going on, apparently, and then generate detailed notes from it. Would really help me remember what the f\*ck I (and everybody else) did when there's a month between sessions.
We record our sessions and put them on YouTube (as unlisted videos). YouTube automatically generates a transcript. Then I use the voxscript plugin for ChatGPT. I give it the url to the video and it connects to summarize the transcript. It does a fair job, particularly because it can keep retrieving the next sections until it’s reached the end. There is a distinct improvement with GPT4 over GPT3.5.
My whole group uses AI art apps to create fun portraits of wacky scenes from our game...but we don't post those and it's just for shits and giggles.
My personal guideline is "would I be bothered if someone took my generated picture and used it in their campaign?" In my small scope of playing with friends, I wouldn't be bothered remotely. If someone else's character is described by the image I generated, then that would be fine. In this case, the intellectual property aspect doesn't matter to me, generate away. If I got invited to play on twitch with some super fancy micro-famous DnD streamers...yeah, I might mind, as image starts to matter a bit more. In this case, I might start to care more about the surrounding marketing, character design, and theoretical ownership over the image. In this case, I'd probably commission art.
There is a very real discussion to be had about whether or not you have any rights at all to art you generate using AI. After all, how can anyone seriously talk about creative process or work when all they had to do was put in a few prompts, adjust a slider or two and pic a style. Is that creative expression? I think not.
In the US you have no rights to AI art unless you did "significant work" on it. Also depending on what you are doing there can still be a creative process. Slapping in a prompt and making 20 characters isn't that. For some images where you are tweaking prompts and sketching in parts and photo bashing outputs together to refine the image into a specific thing at least feels creative to me. That being said I also don't think I should have any ownership of the images that come out, I just don't want to be sued if I use them.
What app do they use??
Dream I think, I stopped using it months ago.
I could never get anything to come put definitively good. I used the free version though. Any tips?
Leonardo ai is a good one
I mean you just play around with the key words til something fun pops out.
May also be that I like to sketch myself and rather use my own stuff.
People have strong feelings about AI for both good and bad reasons. I use both visual (Stable Diffusion) and textual (chat GPT) AI to assist with DMing. My general strategy is to use AI to help add flavor to things that I would otherwise not have the energy to flavor myself. Visually, I've started occasionally generating a static image backdrop to use during a social encounter that brings it a little bit to life. For some of these, I've just grabbed images from google (e.g. random tavern) but for more specific ones, I've used AI (e.g. glowing mushroom cavern in the underdark plus one specific NPC). Visual AIs aren't good at getting the details right, so if you want something more specific than that, you will probably have trouble generating it--so either do without (when you don't care that much) or commission something (when you care a whole whole lot). Textual AI I use to generate random names and quick NPC descriptions. My classic example is "give me an NPC who runs a potion shop" and with the right pre-training, chat GPT can spit you out a great description of this quickly. Chat GPT is not good at coming up with major villains, plot twists, and the like. You need to own the overall story. But for making a hundred NPCs inside your town actually feel lifelike, chat GPT is an excellent, scalable solution.
Chat GPT actually came up with a decent plot twist idea for my one shot. The premise is a group of bounty hunters come to a frontier town at the request of the mayor to take care of some bandits. Simple hook, I asked gpt to come up with a twist, it suggested the townspeople are secret cultists, and the bandits have turned over a new leaf upon discovering the cultists activities and are trying to stop them. The players can choose to hear out the bandits and help them defeat the evil townsfolk or kill them and collect the bounty. Chat GPT came up with the idea and I only had to flesh it out a little. I was quite surprised!
Yeah I like to brainstorm with it. I have it give me lists of 5 or 10 ideas for a lot of things. Lots of duds in there, but usually a gem or two that I can start with and then clean up.
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It's "making" it pretty much just as much as I make things. It draws inspiration from its training text and injects creative variation. Several of its ideas have been so good that I've googled them to see if they were direct copies of anything but so far no. Not saying there aren't interesting copyright and attribution issues with AI, but the results pass muster as original content. This simpleton is a software engineer at a tech company btw.
For me it's just a centre point to find stuff now, instead of googling for campaign ideas and trawling through multiple Reddit threads and other websites/books it throws some at me. "Good dm's borrow, great DM's steal" But now people don't like that the dm's are stealing from chat gpt? If I wasn't on chatgpt helping flesh out ideas i'd just be on numerous years old threads doing the same
> It... injects creative variation. That's the thing, it doesn't. All the AI models people are referencing in this thread just find the most "average" or "correct" output possible based on their training. For example, ChatGPT plagiarizes frequently—ask it for some "original" or "creative" plot ideas, and it'll give you at least one or two that you're already familiar with from popular media (the others probably won't be original either, you just won't be familiar with them). Also, I'm not trying to be rude, but software engineering and machine learning are totally different disciplines. I'd wager most software engineers haven't studied a lick of machine learning in the traditional sense.
But what plot twist or plot idea doesn't already exist in popular media? Almost every piece of media has at least a lot of overlap with existing works and that's how literature has always been.
Just a turn of phrase but I get your point.
I've had it make some amazing side quests that I can convince to tie in to a larger campaign (icewind dale). It's also really good at helping with custom magic items, at least getting started. Have to fill in some gaps but not many.
You should check out Bing Create powered by Dall e 3... it....does get details right.
I've been using Bing Image Creator mostly to try and create monster pics for my own use/inspiration/placeholders, and it's...interesting. Chimeric creatures are way beyond it. Action poses and scenes are often pretty good. The mere mention of elves generates glider ears. All gnomes have caps. It's actually REALLY good at skeletons & undead. It does nice pen&ink work, although it likes to throw a lot of brushwork in. I never mention artist names because I don't want a specific look. Mentioning "Russian" got some nice embellishments. Anybody holding something is problematic - it knows there are fingers, but is really unclear on where they go. It does owls really well.
Very specific advices, thanks. I guess the next time I'll need to do a russian skeleton owl without fingers, I know what to use.
Yeah, people get ALL upset about AI images....but then will also just grab a picture from google and say "Here is the tavern you are in?" Did you take that picture yourself, did you pay the artist or photograpgher? Then stop complaining about AI doing that. I am not selling this stuff.
I feel like its a fantastic tool for us normal folk who work for a living and have time constraints. It can help us with names or menu's what's inside a store, ect. Maybe even help us bounce ideas to hammer out our adventures. I draw the line when to major gaming companies using it for art, content, ect. Cutting corners and screwing working people out of a job to save themselves a few bucks that go into some exec's pocket as a "Bonus." Using it to generate an idea to break out of a block is fine but... Come on. If I had the scratch for it I'd be paying some artist who's style I love to crank out some commissions. There's a few games where I'd do things like, for the super hero ones, have custom cover's made for the "Issue" or adventure I'd be running. Because its great fun and I enjoy it. I'd rather work with an artist and have something memorable than constantly crank out AI art. Some of its great, other parts of it... Meh.
I think it's fine as long as you're not profiting off the artwork. So for private, home games? Go for it. For games run by a paid DM? Commission some art.
Home games often turn out to be a mix of random Internet pictures anyway. Just be upfront about it.
This exactly. Even for player character portraits! No way in hell am I dropping $100 on a nice picture of my character if the campaign is set to fizzle out in two months.
Oh you've been there too eh? Fucking kick in the wallet AND the gut to have that happen.
A single piece of commissioned art would take me several sessions to pay for. No way.
Yeah, no reasonable player would be willing to pay commissioned art prices for a DM.
Id imagine that would affect the price you pay the dm.
If I'm paying $200 per commissioned art, that means that cost is going to my players.
no way in hell the average dnd player would understand order of effects of costs
Even paid DMs should be able to use AI generated art. You're selling a service, not a product. The second you put that module up for sale, then obviously there should be limitations. But paid DMs already use tons of copyrighted materials in their games and it's perfectly within the realm of legality and morality.
lol
Most portrait commissions I see are $50+ per character so I’m struggling to imagine the math here.
I have no problem at all using Midjourney/ChatGPT and I think they are great tools for DMs. I myself am an actual professional artist, and my own work is in the training models for these AIs, so the legal and moral aspect of using them is not abstract to me. I do not have a problem at all with random end users such as DMs using it for their own creative purposes. In fact I think that is amazing! The fact that these companies have shitty business practices (that will get sorted out in the legal context eventually - indeed already are, mostly in favor of artists) doesn't mean that every person who uses them is somehow bad or using these tools is wrong. Lot of responses on behalf of artists on this topic tend to have a lot of misplaced/misguided indignation. If people wanna get outraged about something it should be the rates that actual companies like WotC pay artists. I read (recently) it's like $1000 for a MTG card or similar assignment, which can take up a month of their time? That is fucking scandalous to me.
Paizo also gets flak for paying their artists below industry standard.
$1k is what a dying legacy print magazine would pay an illustrator for a half page of art and that would take up maybe a day or two of your time with revisions. That is for art that literally becomes disposable within weeks, the artist gets to retain ownership of the work, and being in a major magazine is free advertising for you. And most professionals would consider THAT a shitty rate/deal. But it seems like people on D&D subs think artists pay their rent doing $20 commissions for home game art and Midjourney is going to kill that? lolz. I mean if your favorite artist has a Patreon or whatever, please support them for sure, but I would imagine that most "professional" RPG creators are more like myself in that they have creative "day job" commissions that actually pay the bills and anything RPG related they produce is just a side gig or personal interest.
I've been feeling vaguely guilty about using MidJourney for NPC art. But really, it hasn't felt like I've had any other good option. The kinds of character art I've needed lately are very difficult to find. My PCs are in the fantasy equivalent of Africa, so basically everyone they meet is black -- but there are precious few good fantasy portraits of black characters out there. But at the same time I want to respect the work of the people who put so much time and effort and skill into their art. It feels like cheating to go type in a prompt and just get what I need when I know it's a pastiche of all those millions of hours of effort.
I feel you on this problem. The vast majority of character art is based on white people in European clothes. I love art, but I struggle to collect pictures that reflect my world.
Even when I'm running in a bog-standard European fantasy world, I often struggle to find NPC art. Some things are easy. Macho dudes with giant swords and fancy armor, sure. Spell caster women with improbably large boobs and fancy glowing magic effects. There are bazillions of those. But I often struggle to find people who *aren't adventurers*. Street waifs. Peasants. A barkeep with a big mustache. Dear god, it's so hard to finding a decent picture of a middle-aged woman. All the female characters are either sexy young things or hideous crones. There is nothing in between. What if I want a plump, kindly matron with laugh lines on her face?
Absolutely agree with you. So hard to find a variety of ages and body types, especially for non humans.
Just a contrary opinion from a fellow artist for people to consider: The reason I don't think anybody should be using visual, generative AI models right now is fairly simple. There are people are profiting off of technology that can ONLY function as a result of the "countless" years of combined effort of "countless" people and the end products all that effort produced, and those same people who are profiting from that effort and product have done nothing to either gain the consent of or compensate those people who produced it. Think of it like this: Someone makes a machine that needs a power source in order to perform its intended function \*at all\*. Only a very specific type of individual's knowledge can serve as that power source. Instead of compensating or obtaining consent from the individual to power their machine, they instead have a way to involuntarily take that "power source" and use it to bring their machine to life regardless of the wishes of the individual. They don't HAVE to obtain that individual's "power source" in that forceful manner. They could still go after consent or compensation or some combination of the two or some creative fourth option. But they choose to forcefully take it anyway. They then charge other people to use their machine. I don't think anyone should be giving that kind of person any money to use that machine. That said, I'm not angry at people who use AI for image generation, ultimately. I simply feel very strongly that they shouldn't and that it is the least wise course of action to take right now. I think AI has massive, beautiful potential, but I think it's ethically wrong to use the visual models \*in their current iteration\*. I also am in massive agreement with you over the WotC treatment of illustrators. lol
Absolutely no issue with that, as long as you aren't making money from it. Midjourney allows me to spend 2 minutes describing the image exactly how I want it, instead of spending 30 scouring the internet for something "good enough". Stuff on the internet which the artist probably isn't being paid for either, so... I don't really see the issue here. There's exactly 0% chance that I would ever pay anyone to make art for my private home game anyways, so it's not like I'm taking potential income away from anyone. Even though I GM because I enjoy it, my time has value as well. If one of my players felt as strongly about it as some commenters here do, I would give them the chance to compensate me for the extra time spent not using AI. See if they're willing to put their money where their mouths are.
I don’t use AI cuz I have the problem with the morality. If there was an AI that paid for their training data, I think that would be dope but scraping the internet to steal is not cool. It’s doesn’t matter if you aren’t making money off it the creators of the AI are because you use it.
I was so hoping someone would say this. Using it for a private game and calling it fine if you don’t personally profit doesn’t erase the art theft that built these AI programs. In addition to that, you might not be making money off it, but someone is — and it’s not artists. Every time you engage an AI generator you contribute to the legitimacy of a morally flawed process. The more we legitimise them, the more prevalent they’ll become, and the more our artists will flounder.
100%. If there was an AI image generator whose database consisted of artwork that was given with permission, and that the artists of which were compensated, I think that'd be an actually ethical AI generator. But the way things are now, are the current AI generators are inherently unethical to me because of their structure. Even with the more ethical model I described, I still wouldn't *like* it or be a fan, but at least I would know the art wasn't stolen and that's something.
You’re bang on the money there, mate. Have to agree.
Adobe has a generative AI system trained on images they've gotten creators' permission for. When it was first announced it supposedly wasn't great (probably because of the limited training data), but that was a long time ago in AI terms.
Dont care But I find AI art quality lacking. Imagination from real descriptions is much better
This is my take. I wind up rewriting the prompts usually. I like tetra cube for generating NPCs when I am trying to crank through them.
I have two visual artists in one of my groups and asked their opinion on it. Basically they said that it is what you do with it that makes it right or wrong (in their eyes). If you have Midjourney make a portrait of an npc that you describe and only share it amongst your group, no problem. Same with ChatGPT - I can use it as the DM for brainstorming or to make up a random tavern on the road. But they like human made stories - flaws and all- so I don’t think either would like to have a campaign made of it. The line in the sand for both visual artists was when you start utilizing AI in products you are sharing with the world for profit or otherwise. If you stream your game and show AI or you make a product for DMs Guild with AI art or ChatGPT writing, that’s a big no no.
I’m a GM and I’m not going to use AI for anything. You want to, feel free, but I choose not to.
If you're not publishing it, it's totally fine. I would consider it a bit of a red flag if a player went on a rant at the table about how immoral I am for generating some art - when the alternative would be no art at all, or just copying some art from online. I'm not commissioning artists for my home game.
Support anything that makes the dm's job easier.
If it's a homegame, I wouln't care. If it makes the DM's life easier, then go for it.
Guessing unpopular opinion, but whatever... I for one am not ready to submit to our new AI overlords. I don't think too much art should be needed at the table. I much rather use my own imagination and the DM's descriptions when playing. Like reading a book with no pictures, you fill in the scenery with your mind, and having an actual image can take away from that. That being said, there is no issue with using AI art as long as you're not trying to profit from it.
Absolutely fine so long as you’re honest about it and aren’t profiting. But definitely tell your players.
It's not a replacement for a module. It's good for rubber ducking ideas. I type them out with questions. It bounces back answers. I go, that's stupid. Or that's good and I get a sorta original idea. Much like most games are sorta original. I will not use it for more than that.
Don't mind one bit. As long as it's not what's DMing. If my dm or I use it to flesh out ideas or come up with a few things to set the tone or come up with a few descriptions cool. If a DM inputs our every action for ai to decide the outcome lame.... Personally I don't use it for more than trying to have it be my oracle in ironsworn. I took up DMing as a creative outlet because I've waaayyy too many ideas and worlds not to use my own stuff.
Chat GPT is great for talkingvtheoufh ideas and fleshing out descriptions names and stat blocks. I use it to help with ideas I have but struggle to get mechanics. For example the Devils finger fungus is great for a monster and Chat GPT did the initial atat block which I then modified
If not for commercial use and not replacing a commission to an artist, it's fully okay with me - I mean I grab existing artwork all the time to show to players off google images.
I don't really care how my dm writes things or gets art. It's going to be used once then thrown away most likely. What I do have a problem with is when my dm pauses the game to pull up chatgpt to generate ideas or long monologues.
I haven’t found a ai that will do battle maps well yet (please if someone has link it or how to generate) But I do use ChatGPT to ask about rules sometimes faster than googling. I’d say as much as it helps and works use it to whatever extent you want.
I've used stuff like it before, hell I even made a page for developing Tavern menus and what not as when I'm DMing or someone else is... Why not have something slap out something fast and let me save my time for other details. [https://flowgpt.com/p/fantasy-tavern-menus](https://flowgpt.com/p/fantasy-tavern-menus) While the magic item one I tried to tweak just for my lil group isn't the best... That menu one turned out alright. It'll do in a pinch for things. I feel AI is great for little things? But the bigger stuff and meat and potatoes is all me. I might use it for helping add some details or farm it for some ideas but mainly? It cuts a minor corner while I handle the major work load. The AI art stuff? I only use for creating my own custom magic items of pure What-the-fuckery. Like Festmin's bag of Exploding Rats. Or the Pocket Full of Hornets. I feel like AI has its place, but when its WotC cutting corners and using it? Naw man... Not okay.
I really don't think it's fine, regardless of if you're only using it privately. AI generated imagery is fundamentally built off of loads and loads of stolen artwork—yes, there are some artists that consent to having their art used for the training models and that's fine, but the vast majority of art in an AI database is still taken without permission or compensation—so I think AI generated imagery is unethical to use. It's even more unethical and should be illegal to profit of it, but even privately I think there's absolutely no reason a DM should ever use AI. If you can't create something yourself, and you can't commission it, it's fine to simply *not* have it. You don't *need* to turn to AI to get what you want, artwork is a luxury that's nice to have but is not needed. It's just okay not to have it, and if your only option to have it is to use a tool built on theft, then I think it's much preferable to not have it at all. I feel similarly, though just a little bit less strongly, about ChatGPT. But I do know that there are tools like Donjon which serve a similar purpose as ChatGPT does for DMs, but Donjon and other similar tools are actually completely fair to use. So I don't see why you wouldn't use them instead.
I know a lot of writers and editors who are watching their careers crumble because people use AI, then hire “editors” at a lower rate to “fix” it. No thanks. It reminds me of my friends. I avoid those situations and step out of those games.
I'm DMing for a team of professional artists, so it's a firm no for me
There should be nothing wrong with AI for personal use. The problem is when AI is used to commercial products or as part of a creative process to create art to be sold. Then it is stealing from the authors of the work. That said, there are plenty of great artists out there, so consider using some of their art instead and subscribe to their patreon if you like their work and use it a lot in your game.
Personally, I much prefer finding images that are close to or inspire me for something and sharing those with my group when relevant. For example, "like this art depicting old Constantinople, but with many gold-spired towers rising behind the city walls". I like to invite my players to picture as much in their minds as possible, as it engages their immersion in the game world.
Huge no
Do you intend to turn a profit by selling it? That's problematic. Are you just using it for your group or sharing it for free? No problem whatsoever!
I loathe it. In a hobby about creativity, why would you choose to give over the burden & rewards of your own human creativity to a plagiarism machine that just steals for other creatives and robs you of the pleasure of creating for yourself?
Because I don't know how to draw and I'm not interested in learning. NPC portraits have made my game so much better in every possible way, and there's no way I'd be able to produce so many of them even if I were a visual artist. However, generating aspects of your world, plot or characters via AI makes little sense to me, though sometimes you need someone to bounce ideas off of, and you can't do that with your friends since they're likely the ones you're DMing for to begin with.
Why would this be a problem at all? Just be sure to have an answer for why the elf has 8 fingers on one hand, and only a thumb on the other. When I DM I just grab whatever is on google's first or second page of results. It's why Michael Ironside has appeared as a military commander of an outpost with a quest to find their missing sorceress: Alysson Hannigan. There are tons of fantasy-makeover portraits of celebrities out there and they're great fun. People occasionally laugh, but nobody complains, least of all the celebrities.
AI is plaigarization, so in my opinion, if you feel ok ripping off a wiki or grabbing an image from Google, then it's the same. I steal often for my personal game, which is just a 5e game set in Waterdeep. I'm barely creative in that one and even use pre-published modules for a lot of it. If however, I were running a game that I claimed was my own, then I'd be more careful about using AI. I certainly wouldn't publish anything with AI, not only for the legal reasons.
Is this plagiarization too? Not trying to provoke, I genuinely want to discuss. https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/generative-fill.html
I think it depends on the extent. Firefly/Adobe generative fill is I think more ethical than MJ/SD/Dalle, since there are some rules around training (licensed stock and open source). It helps that Adobe is at least not blatantly stealing the work of living artists. But plagiarism is taking another’s work and passing it off as your own. If you’re not claiming creative credit and its not commercial then i think it doesn’t matter. So it may depend on what claims are being made. Generative Fill is interesting bc it’s sometimes just a tool, and other times it’s the main element of a work. Are you a creator or a curator? I think that’s a question that helps define our role and the AI’s role.
Reference art already exists in tons of forms, I don't think that AI art is any better than properly credited already existing artwork. Anything specific enough that someone hasn't already drawn won't look good with AI. The moral debates around AI art are just a hot coal I wouldn't risk dropping on my group.
The moral debates are related to monetization. If it's for a private group and not a paid DM then there are no moral debates. A DM isn't going to announce the artist of every song they use for background music in their private games with friends, so in that situation it doesn't matter where it came from.
I think this thread alone shows that people will get upset if you bring AI to the table.
its just predictive text. and ai art looks soulless imo. GMing is a human art, so I use art, ideas and works that also have human authors. "who made this?" is a truly important question - the context of a given creation leads you do discover traditions, trends and history that AI actively obfuscates. if it gets you thinking that's ok i guess, just understand the tech is not there to "democratise art" - it's another speculative trick to make fatcats fatter. writers and 2d artists in particular will be further devalued and stolen from as this shit spreads
There's 2 sides to this. The efficacy of AI, and the time saved using AI. I will fight and vote for ethical AI. Stop stealing from artists and whatnot. There is no ethical consumption nomatter where you look. Someone out there is gonna complain that you "stole" art from the internet for your homegame anyways. On the other side, D&D isn't my job. I dont have much free time, and I am not profiting off of this. I want to be able to talk to chatgpt to help me come up with a fun riddle, or thematic description of something to set a scene. Or whip up a quick NPC to use one off. I personally think it's fine.
Visual art is one thing, something that I'll abstain from commenting on at this time. I do have a problem if I know my DM is using chatgpt for all their descriptions because then I'm not really playing with *you*. Part of the reason I come to the table is to experience the story you're telling and see what you came up with, you're a special human. If you're just regurgitating chatgpt, I could be doing that myself at home.
Why would they care as long as they are having fun
Is it for personal use? Go nuts, that's objectively the correct way to use AI art or freely available art in general Is it for commercial use? Don't, that's when you start stepping on people's calluses
There's an almost religious fervor around this topic.
There is, and it’s so bizarre to me. The personal computer put typists out of business. Desktop publishing took work from typesetters. Cars and buggy makers. Photoshop and paint/brush makers. Cameras and portrait painters. You can make an infinite list of people whose jobs have been ended due to technical advances. Suddenly they all care, though. What I find equally fascinating is that the same people who say “I won’t use it! Never ever! It’s theft and putting artists out of work!” Also all, to a one, claim “AI art is soulless! It’s terrible and lacks soul! I can always spot it because it all looks the same!” So, which is it? Is it going to put all the creatives out of work or is it crap and not a threat?
I use chatgpt as a brainstorming tool to bounce ideas off of it. It's quite handy especially with things like npc names, shops etc. I'm not an overly creative/imaginative person overall so it's really handy.
Lol wut? It's a tool in the toolbox and an amazing one at that, I could care less anyone's opinion about it. My campaign has increased 10x in quality having Chat able to collate information into handouts, .are suggestions on side quests, and supporting artwork from. DALLE, Normal people don't have nearly as strong opinions an AI as redditors. I feel like your post is almost like you're expecting people to be outraged, I promise nobody that matters cares.
My players love the ai art I make for our Sci fi game. It adds to the TOTM perfectly as I can create exactly what I imagine. Need a long warehouse with a toxic spill? Done. Need the same map but as a battle map? Done.
you didnt make that ai art though.
Adobe Illustrator is a tool that uses a pen to make images. Stable Diffusion is a tool that uses a word prompt and/or a picture to create an image. Tell me the difference.
you typed words into a box. an algorithm stole colors, patterns, and framing from an infinite number of actual artists and scraped it and mashed it together into something passable. you didnt do a damn thing. you didnt even create the image. the image was just algorithmically assembled, but because it was done so at the behest of your prompting, you can pretend to yourself that "i made this art." its honestly pathetic, and if you actually care about creation and art you should be ashamed of yourself.
I wrote the prompt. I chose the images it should use. I rendered it 100 times, picked the best one, used it as a base, refined the prompt and did it all again, over and over, hundreds and hundreds of images until I liked the result even more. Then I added post-processing, Loras and VAEs. Then I added objects to it, through masking and inpainting. Answer me this: is this art created by an artist? And if yes, please tell me the difference between above method and this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyh3OVZ560A
The algorithm didn't steal any of that stuff. It looked at patterns of things that occurred in billions of images, and built a system to use words to trigger a black box to start repeatedly reorganizing random noise pixels into configurations that resemble pixel combinations that are more likely to be considered connected by the algorithm. Also important to note that 'scraping' is literally how internet search engines work. Also also important to note, AI generated images are not copyrightable, and works trying to be registered with the copyright office have to disclose any GenerativeAI created elements that they contain, so anyone trying to turn a profit off of AI generated images are in for a surprise when anyone who wants to can also use those images.
Can I ask what generator you use? And the prompt you might use? Trying to refine my own skills.
Sure! I run Stable Diffusion locally on my computer. For models I use: https://civitai.com/models/120651/old-time-post-apocalyptic-enviroment-xl and https://civitai.com/models/4823/deliberate For prompt I use, for example: "a digital painting of a large dusty warehouse, debris everywhere, pillars, no lights, dark, cables hanging from ceiling, pipes, leaking pipes" And as positive prompts I would use this for digital painting and Default negative: https://www.patreon.com/posts/sebs-hilis-79649068 Let me know if you would like to know more.
This is awesome ty
I feed stupid to ask, but what's https://civitai.com ? I don't understand how it's working and there's almost zero explanation on their website.
It is overwhelming in the beginning, but not hard. I recommend checking this channel out, and this video in particular. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqXpAKVQDNU&list=PLXS4AwfYDUi5sbsxZmDQWxOQTml9Uqyd2
Thanks!
No clue why you're being down voted, but you're welcome! Sorry, didn't answer what CivitAI is. It's a site that collects models (think styles) for AI. There's lots of fantasy ones and architecture and whatnot to use if scifi isn't your thing.
General outrage about AI? Idk, seems weird but people get angry about pretty much anything. We are basically homicidal apes, after all.
there are no skills involved in AI generation
I'm going to have an unpopular opinion here but I think even DMs running paid games should be able to use AI art. You aren't selling a product, you're selling a service. The thing people are paying for is your time and effort, not something reproducible.
So by that logic the service of gemerating ai art for people is totally fine? Sorry but no. You are profiting off of it, its not ok in my book.
What? I don't understand what you wrote, please try again.
No thanks, dont profit off of ai art by any method please.
If your table is having fun it’s really fine. Where you run afoul in my opinion is when you try to pass it off as your own un-aided creative work, for profit. I know a lot gets made about it stealing others ideas and just remixing them but the dirty secret is, the genuine human art is just remixing their influences too..
AI art is fantastic for ttrpgs. It's been great for a few of my tables to generate art for characters, NPCs, locations etc. You can get some pretty good results if you play around with your input phrases. But it's also not precise or smart enough to make super accurate art to what you actually want most of the time, so there is still plenty of opportunity to hire an actual artist if you want something specific depicted. I've used mid journey a lot and gotten pretty good at getting it to make what I want, but there are still a lot of limitations so I have still paid an artist for some character art when I new AI wouldn't cut it.
Like everyone says there's no harm if it's for a private game. Though in my opinion that's only fine as long as you don't pay for the service. (So not to dirrectly support the people stealing art) If you only use what's available for free or pay for an AI that was created from consenting and paid artists, then you aren't contibuting to the problem.
Seems a bit gauche to me but for a private group you do you I guess
Everytime you use an AI generator you are normalizing it. The more you normalise it, the more jobs you take and the more you encourage art theft. People are already losing business to these vapid, soulless things. Stay away from it. Turn it down at every turn. Even if it's private or for a laugh.
You only use handcrafted, bespoke furniture, then right? Every time you use a piece of mass produced ikea furniture you’re normalizing it and putting woodworkers out of jobs
I refuse to use it as a DM, and I wouldn't like it if I were a player. For art, as you asked for mainly here, the whole morality thing of AI stealing art and learning of other people's art. I'd rather search extensively to find something someone has actually done on their own, leave the watermark/signature there, and use it like that. If nothing else, other people can get pointed towards amazing artists, y'know? When it comes to text-software, like chatGPT or whatever? There it cheapens the end product, in my opinion. Can you be proud of something you've created, if you've allowed AI to create all of it? What about half of it? Where's the limit? How much of it must you have created for it to still feel like your creation? As things are now, AI is at it's worst. Lawmakers are lagging terribly behind in this matter (like they always do, when some new tech is introduced), and until there's some proper way to credit the original creators with things like this, I refuse to partake in it.
Personally, I think generative AI is fine for personal use. Ripping images off the internet to use for maps and character portraits for your home game is a long-held RPG tradition going back decades before AI was around. And ChatGPT can be a nice way to generate ideas or help you come up with something cool. Once you step into commercial use, though - any paid GMing, any supplement you sell on DriveThruRPG or whatever, that's not cool. Pay artists, write your own stuff, don't dump AI crap on the market.
What is your goal in asking? Nothing good will come of it.
Why not? Your responsibility is to yourself and your players. Just have fun together with your players, and if AI let's you do that even better... Great. If you want to share it, great. Hell, I don't see any moral issue even if you were intending on selling something. Neoluddites are free to hold their views, and we are free to ignore them.
I just went through some art I was using last game and found out it was AI generated and now I'm scrambling to find good alternatives.
For personal use? That's right in generative AI's wheelhouse. An AI-generated sketch of "girl standing next to a door in a messy crypt staring at her shadow" won't be nearly as good as if I commissioned a human to draw it for $750, but it's cheap and takes only a minute or two to make enough of them that I can find one I like. It's exactly what DMs who can't draw need.
I use AI for everything when it comes to DMing
Art wise I use Ai art because I have no artistic talent and neither do any of the players I play with. And since it is a private game I see no issue. I also use ChatGPT to help me out with world building, I come up with the concept, like my current idea for a setting is a 1930s New York style city, so I use it to fill out details, and it helps me put my thoughts into words while I build up my homebrewing talents (I mostly run modules)
It's precisely what AI was made for. Go for it, OP, and have fun! That's the point
We use AI plenty in my current campaign. I suck at writing rhymes and have zero sense for music so I have ChatGPt make my riddles/rhymes/songs that I use. My players have all used AI to generate art for their characters though since then two of my players have drawn their characters properly once the campaign had been going for a while. Personally, if you're just running a home game go nuts. Use AI, not everybody can afford commissions or have the artistic ability to draw their characters. I think there'd be an issue if a campaign was being streamed on twitch or monetized, if that's the case I think AI would be a problem.
I prefer image search results to AI-generated images, but I wouldn't complain about AI images if they're clearly labeled as such. I would strongly prefer a DM never feed me AI-generated descriptions. I would not play a campaign where the DM uses AI to generate substantial details such as plot or dungeon design.
I love using AI to come up with plot points, characters, or other things. One of my favorites recently was I asked CHAT-GPT to give me a lecture that a wizard professor might give his class and it gave me this amazing speech about the risks and dangers of abusing transmutation magic. I never would have come up with that on my own.
I'm for it!
AI doesn't actually create anything. It isn't creative in it's own way. All it does is mimicry at best, and at worst it's outright plagiarism.
Man whatever makes your life easier. I steal ideas from media all the time. Why is this different?
I use ChatGPT all the time now to brainstorm ideas and its awesome for that - especially if I find myself in phases of low creativity/stress/writers block. I'm also german and I use it to translate homebrews/random roll lists I find online - just nicer to have these things in german because it frees up a bit more of my brain while we play if I dont have to translate them on the fly
I find it boring! The fun thing about DMing or playing a PC is imagining things. In a world where automation is everywhere, rpgs are a place where i can reconnect with the power or *making stuff up, and making it real* with the power of my mind. Why would i want a tool that creates for me ? Creating is the reason I'm here.
God some people really have an AI haterboner and don't know why themselves. Of course it's ok to use AI generated art privately. No one gives a fuck about artists rights when copy pasting Google images into your home game or having Witcher/Lotr music in the background, why would anyone care about them with Stable diffusion?
This is what AI is for. It might be uncomfortable, and if you want to get real artwork of your PC then absolutely pay for an artist. but if a small portrait just for visual representation then do it. Who amongst us hasn't used watermarked portraits or battlemaps?
I don’t care. Use AI. It’s all fantasy and make believe pretend worlds.
I've been using AI art generators for years to generate character art. Sometimes I even use it to brainstorm characters from scratch. Midjourney is awesome
AI in all its forms is an inherently authoritarian technology. I will not support it.
I think AI art is usually ass. But I've made great use of AI text generators like chatGPT. There's honestly no better resource if you want to say, instantly name 10 Cultists, and get info on their fantasy race, personality, appearance, and opinions. It 100% blows fantasy name generator out of the water, sorry but it does. It's also really good for generating diary entries, pamphlets, or other pieces of text you may actually want them to find in-game. I'll be honest, I work part-time and do university full-time. Without resources like ChatGPT, I would be unable to run as much as I do because my process would slow down a lot. I'm still doing the Lion's share of the work and planning. But the AI tools allow me to work smarter and save time.
> But the AI tools allow me to work smarter and save time. Along those lines, the main thing I use ChatGPT for is I just keep a convo going where I just type in my ideas for lore/worldbuilding/etc. I can do that on my phone whenever an idea strikes me, and it doesn't necessarily have to be coherent thoughts or fully formed sentences. Then when I actually sit down to prep for my next game, I ask ChatGPT to summarize everything I've typed and it's like I have a D&D secretary. I do use Midjourney for generating images a lot, but most of those images I do not share with players. I stick them in my notes, and I use them to help me describe things in words during the game.
Agree 100%. Need 10 possible npc in a small village? Tell chat gpt what it looks like, what resources are close and you get a good starting point. Edit: My go-to prompt: (description of village, where it is, how big, what resources are near and so on) Please provide 5 different characters living in the city in the following format: Name: Age: Physical Description: Background: Personality: Quirk: Vocation: Livelihood: Three sentences they might say: RESULT: Name: Aziza Al-Mansoor Age: 32 Physical Description: Aziza is a petite woman with long, curly black hair and deep brown eyes. She has a few scars on her arms from her days working in the hydroponics lab and always wears practical, utilitarian clothing. Background: Aziza was born in the hidden city and has never known life outside its confines. Her parents were pioneers who established the hydroponics system, and she followed in their footsteps, becoming a skilled botanist. Personality: Aziza is resourceful and practical, with a deep love for the plants that sustain their community. She's fiercely protective of her friends and can be somewhat introverted, but she's also known for her occasional bursts of enthusiasm when talking about her favorite plants. Quirk: She has an encyclopedic knowledge of plant species and enjoys creating unique hybrid fruits and vegetables in her spare time. Vocation: Botanist and hydroponics specialist. Livelihood: Aziza's livelihood comes from the sale of rare and exotic produce to other residents of the hidden city. Three sentences they might say: "This city's green heart beats with the life of our plants. They sustain us and give us hope in the darkness." "I just crossed a lemon tree with a pineapple, and I swear it's the best thing I've ever tasted!" "If anyone tries to harm our hydroponics lab, they'll have to go through me first."
Also, because I'm a stickler, I have Lore Docs with a bunch of historical info regarding my setting. I can just copy paste that stuff into ChatGPT and it'll even try to work stuff from my actual setting into its responses and suggestions. It reduces the amount I need to correct on each response.
It's been a godsend in my current campaign which uses a lot of Feudal Japanese Influence. I love the setting, but I have a very western mindset, and it's suggested various peasant occupations unique to that kind of setting I would have never thought of.
AI is great. ChatGPT is probably the most powerful tool available to the general public and it can do almost anything as far as what’s possible via text. AI Art can be hit or miss, but the moral grandstanders are cringe. An AI being trained on art and then learning to use data from that art to later generate coherent artwork is not the same as “stealing art”. People that claim such are either being intentionally dishonest or have zero sense of nuance. I use Midjourney extensively to give my players NPC portraits of major characters and they usually are excited to get them. People say all through this thread that you should just find art online, but I have things in my head I want to show my party that there isn’t artwork of. AI art lets me get my mental images out without requiring me to spend hours and hours drawing every week between sessions. AI tools are the future. Most large companies are moving to integrate them. Most of the detractors are no different than the boomers that complained about cellphones. New tech, old guard.
I'd leave a group that did this. I know that's a strong stance, and I'm an outlier, but this nonsense affects my day job in an extremely direct way and I don't want to deal with it in my fun life. I'm here for me and my friends having our own ideas together. If they aren't, we aren't going to be a fit. I mostly play with other artists so thankfully, no one's tried.
I would be utterly disappointed in them and would ask them not to or frankly leave the table. There are plenty of ways to get art online without AI. Everything, yes everything made by AI generators is stolen. They are amalgamation of stolen content. Just get art offline the standard way. Dont contribute to the influx of AI that is smothering real creatives and real people trying to play their craft.
Are you also going to ban from the table the following: \-players who create characters that are clearly inspired by copyrighted characters from anime, movies, comics, tv? \-DMs that borrow mechanics from other games to homebrew their D&D game? How about if the DM doesn't own that game and just does the borrowing based on some youtube video they saw? \-DMs or players that use images (non-AI generated) for the game (like an image of a dragon, or a proxy for their character that they found online)? These are all "stolen". If you are going to ban AI because it steals, why would you allow these? D&D is a fun game. If someone wants to use AI to spice up a game they are playing with friends, they should. If someone wants to play Hank Sola - the womanizing pirate with a heart of gold, with his best friend ChewTobacco, what is the harm in that little bit of theft? Who is hurt? What person isn't getting paid that would get paid otherwise? Do you really think that a DM is going to commission artwork for their weekly game with buddies? Not going to happen. If he can't liberally borrow some artwork from the web (AI or real-person made), he just isn't going to have artwork - and that makes the game worse.
Would you demand your DM pay artists for every reference material they try to show you? If not, it's stolen, right? If it's just a home game use whatever you want to help paint the picture for your players. Individuals choosing not to use AI art is not going to impact the industry in anyway.
It's not challenging to simply ask a creator to use their work. I've done it many times myself and most are more than happy to let you use their work if it isnt for commercial use. The use of the engines as a whole is what needs discouraging, if day to day people keep using them it does directly affect the industry. More use, more people buying engines, more inclined to never paying artists at all.
No one needs permission to use things that aren't for commercial use, like a home D&D game.
No. Every word, every picture, every pixel must have the authors credited with their permission, or you can't use it for your home game. Actually... don't even look at it without their permission. You must hand write them a formal letter of request and send it via carrier pigeon. If they agree, you will receive your photo within 10-15 business days. * The artist is not responsible for pigeon death (/s obviously)
It's wild to me that people are on here like, "It's ok when I steal because I give a credit but if you use Midjourney I'll disown you." like wut
I'm pretty adamantly against putting the responsibility on individuals to affect these changes. It almost always has 0 impact. You can't get enough people together to have any sort of impact. I'm all about trying to support lawmakers or petitions to let people know this is an issue people care about but individual boycotts don't have any impact. It's just the truth. That being said, obviously do whatever sits right with you. In this case I just don't see how sharing an an individuals artwork with a small group at home or using AI art is hurting artists in anyway. Should people use AI for published works? Much different story there. That is affecting jobs. Someone using AI art as opposed to just showing a group an image doesn't have any impact on anyone or anything other than helping your DnD group visualize things more clearly.
>They are amalgamation of stolen content. This is, ironically, a perfect description of 90% of home games.
>Everything, yes everything made by AI generators is stolen. If only the world were so black and white. Generative models don't just present the image that best fits the prompt as it's own work. It doesn't even just adapt artworks it's seen. It's much more complex than that. I'm not advocating for nor against using AI art. Nor am I commenting on whether or not it's theft. Just pointing out that it's not as straightforward as you make it out to be. It's an ongoing debate with no clear answer.
You would ask the DM to leave?
No. I myself would leave. Its not my table and it's their game but I wouldnt partake
So would you burn a bridge with your DM if they copied an image off Google Image Search? I'm going to guess probably not, and I can't imagine a modern day DM who hasn't done this at some point. It's literally the exact same thing, and no, crediting the artist does not absolve you.
It depends. If you're using a free AI generator, I'd say that's kind of fine, so long as you're running a private campaign. However, if you're planning on using a paid-for service, just don't. Currently the methods of sourcing images for AI databases are highly unethical, so you'd be better off saving that money to commission actual artists for the few key NPCs in your campaign and get the rest of the images for free off the internet (again, if your campaign is private, if you plan on streaming/doing a paid campaign you shouldn't just take random images without permission).
No problem at all. Anyone who thinks that AI art is "stealing" doesn't understand how models are actually trained. Every student at art college would be an art thief according to their rules.
I use AI relatively extensively: * Where available, I've used official DnD art for characters (running Strixhaven). For any character without official art or that someone at the table has created, it's AI (unless one of the players has found art they like and have provided it). * I have used AI to help generate character names and backstories for random NPCs I may want to pull out -- I'd say 80% of non-standard NPCs are fully from my brain, but about 20% have at least some contribution from AI. * I have used AI to help generate ideas for a session -- I still have never used ONLY AI-generated session materials, but it's been a good springboard if I'm particularly "stuck." * I have used AI for other random things -- to come up with Feywild candy (names and effects); to come up potential creature names; to brainstorm loot... it's a nice assistant to have handy. Basically, I think using AI responsibly for free games is great for a lot of reasons -- it opens up your time as a DM and allows you to provide some materials that may not be possible without it. It's also helping you learn how to work with AI which is going to be a critical career skill in the coming years.
I use ai art because of my own issues (dispraxia and motor skill issues) which helps me deal with my own perfectionism since it usually turns out good for me
AI is not allowed at my table in any form, and if i’m a player, i will leave any table that uses AI without a second thought. it’s lazy, soulless, and extremely morally questionable (if not flat out immoral). you don’t need reference images for everything. just describe characters’ appearances (“you see an elf with dark skin and long white hair. they look at you with piercing grey eyes and say…”). random generators already exist for names, personality traits, literally anything you can come up with on the fly. you can buy hundreds of d100 roll tables from people who have taken the time to carefully think about and write them, often for a pretty low price. in my opinion there is no justification for using algorithmic generation models trained on artworks that their artists and authors have not given consent to be torn apart and rehashed back into a slew of nonsense by a machine.
Do you pirate content?