When consumer-accessible AI can perform all of the functions of a DM (specifically the ability to improvise comes to mind)
So, not in my lifetime then
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I think, even if D&D ultimately gets overtaken by another game, at least in terms of "copies sold" and "active community", D&D will still remain the generic term for all of TTRPGs in pop culture and among the general public. Sort of like how, in the 90's, every videogame system was just "A Nintendo" for anyone who didn't actually pay attention to that kind of thing. Even if Vampire: The Masquerade comes out with a new edition that sweeps the TTRPG world off its feet, the average person will still recognize "Dungeons and Dragons" as just the generic term for TTRPGs... if you and your friends are trying to explain what you're doing rolling all those dice and speaking in weird voices to Grandma, you'll just have to say, "It's like Dungeons and Dragons, but everyone is Vampires."
VtM is also the only other TTRPG to get even a fraction of the general pop-culture exposure of D&D
When another system has multiple movies, animated TV shows etc. produced based on its lore(s), then maybe we can start talking about it overtaking D&D
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
When consumer-accessible AI can perform all of the functions of a DM (specifically the ability to improvise comes to mind)
So, not in my lifetime then
Most likely, but technology is hard to predict. Think about how many sci-fi concepts are now commonplace devices... just compare how mind-blowing a $50 cell phone manufactured this year is compared to the most advanced commercially available cell phone 20 years ago.
But yeah... unless some kind of wild revolution in AI technology gets invented that shatters the upward limit on what AI is capable of, I seriously doubt we'll get any form of AI capable of the functions of a DM, and even after it gets invented it will be years before it becomes available to the public and eventually converted into a form that can be used as an AI Dungeon Master.
When consumer-accessible AI can perform all of the functions of a DM (specifically the ability to improvise comes to mind)
So, not in my lifetime then
Skynet became self aware already, didn’t it?
All kidding aside, Google’s AI was asked what a cat is and it generated an original visual representation of a cat from its own understanding of what a cat is:
Most likely, but technology is hard to predict. Think about how many sci-fi concepts are now commonplace devices... just compare how mind-blowing a $50 cell phone manufactured this year is compared to the most advanced commercially available cell phone 20 years ago.
Are you kidding?!? That phone is more powerful than all of NASA’s computing capability combined during the ‘60s, and we put people on the moon with those.
A "DM AI" doesn't need to be fully human-smart. It just needs to function as a kind of super-assistant, where the players still make some creative suggestions. Imagine an AI that can effectively run interesting combats. It wouldn't have to be science-fiction-smart in the sense that you can have a conversation with it. It just needs to handle the mechanics well and have some preset encounter ideas. If the players do something unexpected, maybe it asks for a little input. You might not even need a dedicated DM to handle that.
Not saying TTRPGs are dying any time soon, just saying the AI thing isn't all or nothing.
A "DM AI" doesn't need to be fully human-smart. It just needs to function as a kind of super-assistant, where the players still make some creative suggestions. Imagine an AI that can effectively run interesting combats. It wouldn't have to be science-fiction-smart in the sense that you can have a conversation with it. It just needs to handle the mechanics well and have some preset encounter ideas. If the players do something unexpected, maybe it asks for a little input. You might not even need a dedicated DM to handle that.
Not saying TTRPGs are dying any time soon, just saying the AI thing isn't all or nothing.
Dude, AI can make decisions like that on IRL battlefields, though largely limited to a surveillance decision making instead of firing weapons for the time being. Those environments have a lot more factors to worry over than what's thrown on a VTT. You're basically saying the fulcrum would be some sort of "assisted" VTT where the VTT knows how to move/play the monsters and traps automatically. That's mistaking the potential of what AI actually does and may do for what video games already do. And if when such enhancement comes to tabletop it would definitely not be the inflection point where D&D topples ... it'll likely be D&D branded.
Just wondering VTT players out there, in the T&Cs is there any sort of stipulation about the records of your VTT games being the property of the VTT? Following the way AI natural language processing has evolved, a "corpus" of TTRPG play archived by one of the bigger VTT players would be invaluable to the development of AI GM. Part of me wonders if it's being done.
Outside of TTRPG circles, the "regular" populace as it were... Dungeons and Dragons is what they think all pen and paper rpg's are called. It's to the point where the brand name becomes the name of a phenomenon. When you want ask for a Coke, when you really don't care about the brand of soda. When you relax in a Whirlpool or Jacuzzi even if it's just a kiddie pool with an air compressor hose in it. When you Google a term as you search for it on Bing. When you Xerox a document on a Epson copier. When someone is Tasered by a stun gun. Etc...
As a business, there will be times when DnD isn't the biggest fish. Even as a business, it has failed, thankfully saved by WotC. But the IP, the name DnD will endure. As a brand it is iconic, for better or worse, as the symbol for the whole industry among people outside the genre.
A "DM AI" doesn't need to be fully human-smart. It just needs to function as a kind of super-assistant, where the players still make some creative suggestions. Imagine an AI that can effectively run interesting combats. It wouldn't have to be science-fiction-smart in the sense that you can have a conversation with it. It just needs to handle the mechanics well and have some preset encounter ideas. If the players do something unexpected, maybe it asks for a little input. You might not even need a dedicated DM to handle that.
Not saying TTRPGs are dying any time soon, just saying the AI thing isn't all or nothing.
Dude, AI can make decisions like that on IRL battlefields, though largely limited to a surveillance decision making instead of firing weapons for the time being. Those environments have a lot more factors to worry over than what's thrown on a VTT. You're basically saying the fulcrum would be some sort of "assisted" VTT where the VTT knows how to move/play the monsters and traps automatically. That's mistaking the potential of what AI actually does and may do for what video games already do. And if when such enhancement comes to tabletop it would definitely not be the inflection point where D&D topples ... it'll likely be D&D branded.
Just wondering VTT players out there, in the T&Cs is there any sort of stipulation about the records of your VTT games being the property of the VTT? Following the way AI natural language processing has evolved, a "corpus" of TTRPG play archived by one of the bigger VTT players would be invaluable to the development of AI GM. Part of me wonders if it's being done.
I'm not connecting AI to "fall of D&D." In fact I'm explicitly saying they're not connected. I'm just pointing out that a feasible DM AI can exist at a much lower level than something you'd see in SF. The AI wouldn't need to be anything like a real person in terms of smarts and awareness.
I do not doubt there's work being done on AI-like (meaning, complex instructions rather than something ethereal like "self awareness") DM tools. Mainly because I'm working on one myself for my own table.
Most likely, but technology is hard to predict. Think about how many sci-fi concepts are now commonplace devices... just compare how mind-blowing a $50 cell phone manufactured this year is compared to the most advanced commercially available cell phone 20 years ago.
Are you kidding?!? That phone is more powerful than all of NASA’s computing capability combined during the ‘60s, and we put people on the moon with those.
The Game Boy I had in the 80s was more powerful than the computers used for the Apollo missions.
But with regards to the original question, D&D is doing well right now but who knows how that could change? Hasbro could tomorrow decide to do something incredibly stupid, like trying to jump on the NFT bandwagon and going bankrupt and dragging WotC down with them. Not a very likely scenario, but business do make stupid decisions that can cost them considerable amounts of money or even bring the company down. Or some Kickstarter game could wind up becoming popular beyond all predictions and result in a massive shift in the market. Hard to predict these things: would anyone in the 90s have predicted what 5E would be like?
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Getting an AI that can run D&D combat, I think, is possible right now, but only hard, crunchy, RAW combat. I actually think it would be interesting to see how the game would run if there was a human "story" DM who manages storytelling and adjudicates hard-to-define decisions, but where combat is mostly run by an AI who can take moves quickly and knows all of the rules instantaneously.
If this kind of thing was created I don't think it would work best with D&D, though... I think it would work better with a game that was built specifically for this AI assistant. I'm imagining something sold as like, a "GM Assistant"... something where players on a physical board pull out a phone or a home assistant (like an Echo or Google Home or whatever) with a program that assists with combat... or for VTTs where it can control the game directly. If something like this existed, where it simplified the entire process... allowing not just an AI to run combat, but an assistant to speed up character building and simplifying everything that needs to be tracked, I could see that overtaking D&D for casual players... but that's assuming it works as intended. I can't help but think of the Kinect, which promised this unparalleled level of physical interaction, but functionally it was just this clunky, unpleasant extra step to accomplish tasks that normally require a simple button press.
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Video games haven't eradicated boardgames - which actually can and have been programmed so you don't absolutely need to play against other people - so I don't worry about an AI revolution (which isn't exactly imminent either) ending TTRPGs. The social element, the human component, is very much an invaluable part of the experience. And I mean, if you DM a campaign or two you'll be acutely aware you can't plan for every eventuality. Players will continue to surprise you, forcing you to improvise and think on your feet. That kind of AI is still true sci-fi on the same level as widescale space colonisation. I don't doubt they're both going to happen at some point, but it's not going to be soon.
In fact the board game market has taken off massively in the past 8 or so years, so many people I know who would never call themselves “geeks” own board games now like ticket to ride or catan. Board games have become far more social than computer games have as the old “split screen” modes that older multiplayer games has has been replaced by a requirement to have multiple consoles/computers on the same location.
Getting an AI that can run D&D combat, I think, is possible right now, but only hard, crunchy, RAW combat. I actually think it would be interesting to see how the game would run if there was a human "story" DM who manages storytelling and adjudicates hard-to-define decisions, but where combat is mostly run by an AI who can take moves quickly and knows all of the rules instantaneously.
If this kind of thing was created I don't think it would work best with D&D, though... I think it would work better with a game that was built specifically for this AI assistant. I'm imagining something sold as like, a "GM Assistant"... something where players on a physical board pull out a phone or a home assistant (like an Echo or Google Home or whatever) with a program that assists with combat... or for VTTs where it can control the game directly. If something like this existed, where it simplified the entire process... allowing not just an AI to run combat, but an assistant to speed up character building and simplifying everything that needs to be tracked, I could see that overtaking D&D for casual players... but that's assuming it works as intended. I can't help but think of the Kinect, which promised this unparalleled level of physical interaction, but functionally it was just this clunky, unpleasant extra step to accomplish tasks that normally require a simple button press.
I mean even if the industry went the route of AI I can see DND being licensed out to a company simply because of brand recognition, this is if WORC didn’t decide to make a digital arm of there own.
Non-Fungible Token. Basically it's a form of blockchain used for transactions that purportedly sell you a digital copy of a piece of artwork except that all it really does is add a little note to the blockchain saying that this copy of this image is owned by you. It's like buying a postcard of the Mona Lisa instead of the actual Mona Lisa, except that you just get a receipt stating that you've purchased the image without actually getting the postcard. It's a popular bandwagon right now that a lot of people and companies are trying to jump on in order to sell NFTs despite the fact that it's widely hated by the public and there's been major backlash against every company that's actually tried to implement it. Basically it's a Ponzi scheme.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
An AI DM will never be popular - how can you argue with AI? Takes all the fun out of the game.
I imagine that when the apocalypse comes, there will still be five gamers locking themselves in a vault and just playing D&D until the food runs out...
6th hasn't given any reason not to NFT my NPCs. I mean if I take my NPCs to NFT and that would topple D&D, I may pause and think it over; but I'm still probably going to do it anyway.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
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So, not in my lifetime then
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
VtM is also the only other TTRPG to get even a fraction of the general pop-culture exposure of D&D
When another system has multiple movies, animated TV shows etc. produced based on its lore(s), then maybe we can start talking about it overtaking D&D
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Most likely, but technology is hard to predict. Think about how many sci-fi concepts are now commonplace devices... just compare how mind-blowing a $50 cell phone manufactured this year is compared to the most advanced commercially available cell phone 20 years ago.
But yeah... unless some kind of wild revolution in AI technology gets invented that shatters the upward limit on what AI is capable of, I seriously doubt we'll get any form of AI capable of the functions of a DM, and even after it gets invented it will be years before it becomes available to the public and eventually converted into a form that can be used as an AI Dungeon Master.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Skynet became self aware already, didn’t it?
All kidding aside, Google’s AI was asked what a cat is and it generated an original visual representation of a cat from its own understanding of what a cat is:
And it can doodle them too:
👆 Human Cat Doodles | | Google AI’s Cat Doodles 👆
We’re screwed.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
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Are you kidding?!? That phone is more powerful than all of NASA’s computing capability combined during the ‘60s, and we put people on the moon with those.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
A "DM AI" doesn't need to be fully human-smart. It just needs to function as a kind of super-assistant, where the players still make some creative suggestions. Imagine an AI that can effectively run interesting combats. It wouldn't have to be science-fiction-smart in the sense that you can have a conversation with it. It just needs to handle the mechanics well and have some preset encounter ideas. If the players do something unexpected, maybe it asks for a little input. You might not even need a dedicated DM to handle that.
Not saying TTRPGs are dying any time soon, just saying the AI thing isn't all or nothing.
Dude, AI can make decisions like that on IRL battlefields, though largely limited to a surveillance decision making instead of firing weapons for the time being. Those environments have a lot more factors to worry over than what's thrown on a VTT. You're basically saying the fulcrum would be some sort of "assisted" VTT where the VTT knows how to move/play the monsters and traps automatically. That's mistaking the potential of what AI actually does and may do for what video games already do. And if when such enhancement comes to tabletop it would definitely not be the inflection point where D&D topples ... it'll likely be D&D branded.
Just wondering VTT players out there, in the T&Cs is there any sort of stipulation about the records of your VTT games being the property of the VTT? Following the way AI natural language processing has evolved, a "corpus" of TTRPG play archived by one of the bigger VTT players would be invaluable to the development of AI GM. Part of me wonders if it's being done.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Outside of TTRPG circles, the "regular" populace as it were... Dungeons and Dragons is what they think all pen and paper rpg's are called. It's to the point where the brand name becomes the name of a phenomenon. When you want ask for a Coke, when you really don't care about the brand of soda. When you relax in a Whirlpool or Jacuzzi even if it's just a kiddie pool with an air compressor hose in it. When you Google a term as you search for it on Bing. When you Xerox a document on a Epson copier. When someone is Tasered by a stun gun. Etc...
As a business, there will be times when DnD isn't the biggest fish. Even as a business, it has failed, thankfully saved by WotC. But the IP, the name DnD will endure. As a brand it is iconic, for better or worse, as the symbol for the whole industry among people outside the genre.
I'm not connecting AI to "fall of D&D." In fact I'm explicitly saying they're not connected. I'm just pointing out that a feasible DM AI can exist at a much lower level than something you'd see in SF. The AI wouldn't need to be anything like a real person in terms of smarts and awareness.
I do not doubt there's work being done on AI-like (meaning, complex instructions rather than something ethereal like "self awareness") DM tools. Mainly because I'm working on one myself for my own table.
The Game Boy I had in the 80s was more powerful than the computers used for the Apollo missions.
But with regards to the original question, D&D is doing well right now but who knows how that could change? Hasbro could tomorrow decide to do something incredibly stupid, like trying to jump on the NFT bandwagon and going bankrupt and dragging WotC down with them. Not a very likely scenario, but business do make stupid decisions that can cost them considerable amounts of money or even bring the company down. Or some Kickstarter game could wind up becoming popular beyond all predictions and result in a massive shift in the market. Hard to predict these things: would anyone in the 90s have predicted what 5E would be like?
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Getting an AI that can run D&D combat, I think, is possible right now, but only hard, crunchy, RAW combat. I actually think it would be interesting to see how the game would run if there was a human "story" DM who manages storytelling and adjudicates hard-to-define decisions, but where combat is mostly run by an AI who can take moves quickly and knows all of the rules instantaneously.
If this kind of thing was created I don't think it would work best with D&D, though... I think it would work better with a game that was built specifically for this AI assistant. I'm imagining something sold as like, a "GM Assistant"... something where players on a physical board pull out a phone or a home assistant (like an Echo or Google Home or whatever) with a program that assists with combat... or for VTTs where it can control the game directly. If something like this existed, where it simplified the entire process... allowing not just an AI to run combat, but an assistant to speed up character building and simplifying everything that needs to be tracked, I could see that overtaking D&D for casual players... but that's assuming it works as intended. I can't help but think of the Kinect, which promised this unparalleled level of physical interaction, but functionally it was just this clunky, unpleasant extra step to accomplish tasks that normally require a simple button press.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
6th has me wanting to NFT my NPCs....
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
All glory to the blockchain
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
In fact the board game market has taken off massively in the past 8 or so years, so many people I know who would never call themselves “geeks” own board games now like ticket to ride or catan. Board games have become far more social than computer games have as the old “split screen” modes that older multiplayer games has has been replaced by a requirement to have multiple consoles/computers on the same location.
I mean even if the industry went the route of AI I can see DND being licensed out to a company simply because of brand recognition, this is if WORC didn’t decide to make a digital arm of there own.
NFT?
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Non-Fungible Token. Basically it's a form of blockchain used for transactions that purportedly sell you a digital copy of a piece of artwork except that all it really does is add a little note to the blockchain saying that this copy of this image is owned by you. It's like buying a postcard of the Mona Lisa instead of the actual Mona Lisa, except that you just get a receipt stating that you've purchased the image without actually getting the postcard. It's a popular bandwagon right now that a lot of people and companies are trying to jump on in order to sell NFTs despite the fact that it's widely hated by the public and there's been major backlash against every company that's actually tried to implement it. Basically it's a Ponzi scheme.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
No. I don’t believe D&D will be surpassed in our lifetime.
An AI DM will never be popular - how can you argue with AI? Takes all the fun out of the game.
I imagine that when the apocalypse comes, there will still be five gamers locking themselves in a vault and just playing D&D until the food runs out...
6th hasn't given any reason not to NFT my NPCs. I mean if I take my NPCs to NFT and that would topple D&D, I may pause and think it over; but I'm still probably going to do it anyway.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.