Fundamentally, the tech isn't there to make the idea viable. Modern systems like ChatGPT are impressive, and you could do... something... with it. AI Dungeon demonstrates that.
But the systems that we have lack intention. GMs, even the most improvisational GMs, have some kind of plan. The AI systems don't, and can't. They can't even follow the module. You could probably get them to use the module, but they'll likely wobble back and forth through it, and go off the rails at the slightest provocation.
Similarly, I don't think thy can enforce the rules. They'll probably look like they're following the rules, because whatever they're trained on will be full of people following the rules, but there's no understanding that the rules are a thing that constrains what can occur. For instance, if the first-level fighter says "I cast fireball", the AIGM is going to describe the effects of fireball, and it'll be really hard to make them not do so, because the training data is going to mostly contain only characters who can cast fireball announcing that they're doing so.
There are specific, limited, tasks that an AI system could be useful for. Running an NPC, for instance. Properly primed, they could do a fairly good job of that, as long as the players don't try to break it. (I'm not sure they could handle the interactions with the social skills, but I'm not sure they couldn't, either.) You'd have the inevitable problem that they'd just start inventing background on you at the drop of the hat.
But as a general-purpose GM? Not this generation of the tech.
To all the naysayers: I decided I would actually put this to the test. I trained ChatGPT to be a DM, and it appears to ave worked. I gave it parts of the DMG, SRD, and the Rise of Tiamat supplement all piece by piece, then asked to it stat playing D&D through text. I have just started so I do not yet know its full capabilities, but it seems to be running the game quite well. Here are some screenshots:
I'll provide more updates in a few days after I see its full capabilities in action. But I have hope. It does appear that even chatGPT can be, to some degree, a DM. Obviously it won't be perfect and, to BoringBard's point, I think the people are in many ways more important than the game itself.
To all the naysayers: I decided I would actually put this to the test. I trained ChatGPT to be a DM, and it appears to ave worked. I gave it parts of the DMG, SRD, and the Rise of Tiamat supplement all piece by piece, then asked to it stat playing D&D through text. I have just started so I do not yet know its full capabilities, but it seems to be running the game quite well. Here are some screenshots:
I'll provide more updates in a few days after I see its full capabilities in action. But I have hope. It does appear that even chatGPT can be, to some degree, a DM. Obviously it won't be perfect and, to BoringBard's point, I think the people are in many ways more important than the game itself.
That's exciting to read. It definitely captures the feeling of playing D&D, but it's missing interactive hooks. Kind of like it's assuming the person on the other end is going to continue a script, rather than need to be drawn into the story, which is ideal, but not realistic. That should be an easy fix with a bit more prompting though.
Try asking it to come up with some original magic items, and to be more descriptive about the setting. Or to illustrate the setting with ASCII.
Unfortunately, until it's fully integrated with webcam and emotion tracking, it won't be able to pick up on body language and non-verbal cues.
So far so good but those few posts aren't really a proof of concept for being able to DM an actual campaign with four or so players.
I'm not against the idea on principle, I just don't think the technology is there to handle a full on game. But we'll see what happens as your test continues.
It appears that ChatGPT is not a great DM. Not ruling out the possibility of an AI DM ever working, but ChatGPT does not seem to understand how D&D works.
In all honesty, the fact that you even managed to get that far with existing programs is incredibly impressive. It shows that AI DMs are a lot more possible than many people realized, and I would encourage you to keep trying with Chatgpt to see if you can make it work.
As a side note, I can't help notice that the program was doing fine with longer, more dialogue heavy replies. Perhaps being very specific and detailed on what you want to do helps Chatgpt respond? It relies on copying repeated information and word choices from other sources, so maybe inserting some examples of step by step play might help the program.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
You could jump onto the PbP site RPGCrossing and try to dump some of those games into ChatGPT. There are tons of accessible text based campaigns for the picking.
As a side note, I can't help notice that the program was doing fine with longer, more dialogue heavy replies. Perhaps being very specific and detailed on what you want to do helps Chatgpt respond? It relies on copying repeated information and word choices from other sources, so maybe inserting some examples of step by step play might help the program.
You could jump onto the PbP site RPGCrossing and try to dump some of those games into ChatGPT. There are tons of accessible text based campaigns for the picking.
I want to point out this is an AI chat bot it was not designed to be a DM so if this is as good as a chatbot can be imagine what an AI designed to be a DM would be like.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
A possibly useful tool for a DM, but to replace one? Probably not. It would only know what it's trained to know. ChatGPT's training is closed. It does not learn from conversations beyond the one it is having in the current session with the current user. That's a safeguard against what happened with Microsoft's "learning" AI, Tay. Players could manipulate a "learning" DM.
EDIT: One can guide ChatGPT in a session to give DM-like responses, but that's the user who guided the algorithmic clever system to generate the responses by questions and statements made in that session. The question above was the only thing asked in a session, no prior prompting or questions. The deduction was its own trained data, nothing from me other than the question.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
The beating heart of D&D is that it's an unscripted game of endless possibilities shared amongst friends. A computer AI version is at best a bad facsimile of the real game. It'd be like watching Asimo the Honda robot pretend to be human - we all know it's a fake and would never replace the real thing.
A.I. DMs aren't a terrible idea, however I'm pretty damn sure that what ever A.I. WotC try's to give us wouldn't even be half as good as AI dungeon which itself couldn't replace a real quality DM. The reason why I don't think its not a terrible idea is because there is a DM shortage in 5e. though I have heard there's a player shortage in other rule sets.
Are the WOTC A.I. systems going to allow you to have a conversation with an NPC, and try and convince them verbally to do something different from what they were going to do?
Can the A.I. handle describing the situation within a throne room of somebody being knighted?
How is the WOTC A.I. going to be different or better than the game engine of Neverwinter nights, or similar video games?
How is the WOTC A.I. going to be different or better than the game engine of Neverwinter nights, or similar video games?
You cannot in Neverwinter Knights say “I roll an athletics check to shove the blacksmith into his own forge”—an AI could do something like that.
Which is why I don’t think there is a congruency between video games and an AI DM - they offer different things. Just like D&D video games did not replace tabletop DMs (and an AI DM cannot ever truly replace a human DM), a competent AI DM would fill its own niche, functioning more like an old text based adventure—just one that can react to any possible input instead of requiring very, very specific commands.
In doing so, it could fill a nice middle ground for someone who wants greater freedom than a computer game would allow, but who is not able to join a human group/wants to play more often than their human group does/etc.
A.I. DMs aren't a terrible idea, however I'm pretty damn sure that what ever A.I. WotC try's to give us wouldn't even be half as good as AI dungeon which itself couldn't replace a real quality DM. The reason why I don't think its not a terrible idea is because there is a DM shortage in 5e. though I have heard there's a player shortage in other rule sets.
Are the WOTC A.I. systems going to allow you to have a conversation with an NPC, and try and convince them verbally to do something different from what they were going to do?
Can the A.I. handle describing the situation within a throne room of somebody being knighted?
How is the WOTC A.I. going to be different or better than the game engine of Neverwinter nights, or similar video games?
Did you miss the part where I said any AI DM WotC gives us wont be half as good as as AI dungeon which itself has issues. Nowhere did I say a WotC AI DM would be good, what I said is it's not a terrible idea. Do I think anyone has an AI right now that could to the job no, in a few years though especially at the rate AI is advancing I could see it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
A.I. DMs aren't a terrible idea, however I'm pretty damn sure that what ever A.I. WotC try's to give us wouldn't even be half as good as AI dungeon which itself couldn't replace a real quality DM. The reason why I don't think its not a terrible idea is because there is a DM shortage in 5e. though I have heard there's a player shortage in other rule sets.
Are the WOTC A.I. systems going to allow you to have a conversation with an NPC, and try and convince them verbally to do something different from what they were going to do?
Can the A.I. handle describing the situation within a throne room of somebody being knighted?
How is the WOTC A.I. going to be different or better than the game engine of Neverwinter nights, or similar video games?
Even with the rudimentary AI we have now, there are some very key differences between them and traditional scripted video games. For example, Natural Language Processing means the AI can parse a much wider range of PC actions than a videogame can. And Predictive Analytics means that monsters can anticipate your tactics in challenging or thrilling ways.
There's also useful aspects to AIs that aren't directly related to DMing, like image processing for quickly loading new maps into a VTT grid, or speech-based search to quickly look things up on the fly ("what's the difference between Restrained and Paralyzed again?")
For those who haven't seen it yet. Pop over to this thread and read the adventure that I had ChatGPT run for me. This was with no practical training.
It wasn't running "D&D 5e" mechanics, but it did a decent job running a "dice based adventure". The actual rules could be hard coded into an A.I. DM for practical reasons.
Repeated post, my apologies.
Fundamentally, the tech isn't there to make the idea viable. Modern systems like ChatGPT are impressive, and you could do... something... with it. AI Dungeon demonstrates that.
But the systems that we have lack intention. GMs, even the most improvisational GMs, have some kind of plan. The AI systems don't, and can't. They can't even follow the module. You could probably get them to use the module, but they'll likely wobble back and forth through it, and go off the rails at the slightest provocation.
Similarly, I don't think thy can enforce the rules. They'll probably look like they're following the rules, because whatever they're trained on will be full of people following the rules, but there's no understanding that the rules are a thing that constrains what can occur. For instance, if the first-level fighter says "I cast fireball", the AIGM is going to describe the effects of fireball, and it'll be really hard to make them not do so, because the training data is going to mostly contain only characters who can cast fireball announcing that they're doing so.
There are specific, limited, tasks that an AI system could be useful for. Running an NPC, for instance. Properly primed, they could do a fairly good job of that, as long as the players don't try to break it. (I'm not sure they could handle the interactions with the social skills, but I'm not sure they couldn't, either.) You'd have the inevitable problem that they'd just start inventing background on you at the drop of the hat.
But as a general-purpose GM? Not this generation of the tech.
To all the naysayers: I decided I would actually put this to the test. I trained ChatGPT to be a DM, and it appears to ave worked. I gave it parts of the DMG, SRD, and the Rise of Tiamat supplement all piece by piece, then asked to it stat playing D&D through text. I have just started so I do not yet know its full capabilities, but it seems to be running the game quite well. Here are some screenshots:
I'll provide more updates in a few days after I see its full capabilities in action. But I have hope. It does appear that even chatGPT can be, to some degree, a DM. Obviously it won't be perfect and, to BoringBard's point, I think the people are in many ways more important than the game itself.
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
That's exciting to read. It definitely captures the feeling of playing D&D, but it's missing interactive hooks. Kind of like it's assuming the person on the other end is going to continue a script, rather than need to be drawn into the story, which is ideal, but not realistic. That should be an easy fix with a bit more prompting though.
Try asking it to come up with some original magic items, and to be more descriptive about the setting. Or to illustrate the setting with ASCII.
Unfortunately, until it's fully integrated with webcam and emotion tracking, it won't be able to pick up on body language and non-verbal cues.
So far so good but those few posts aren't really a proof of concept for being able to DM an actual campaign with four or so players.
I'm not against the idea on principle, I just don't think the technology is there to handle a full on game. But we'll see what happens as your test continues.
Yeah... so this happened:
It appears that ChatGPT is not a great DM. Not ruling out the possibility of an AI DM ever working, but ChatGPT does not seem to understand how D&D works.
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
Lol, no no no, ChatGPT is just really excited to play D&D and has decided that "your" character is really "our" character.
In all honesty, the fact that you even managed to get that far with existing programs is incredibly impressive. It shows that AI DMs are a lot more possible than many people realized, and I would encourage you to keep trying with Chatgpt to see if you can make it work.
As a side note, I can't help notice that the program was doing fine with longer, more dialogue heavy replies. Perhaps being very specific and detailed on what you want to do helps Chatgpt respond? It relies on copying repeated information and word choices from other sources, so maybe inserting some examples of step by step play might help the program.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.You could jump onto the PbP site RPGCrossing and try to dump some of those games into ChatGPT. There are tons of accessible text based campaigns for the picking.
That could make sense. I'll try that.
I'll look into that, thanks.
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
I want to point out this is an AI chat bot it was not designed to be a DM so if this is as good as a chatbot can be imagine what an AI designed to be a DM would be like.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
I asked a that chatbot this question.
A possibly useful tool for a DM, but to replace one? Probably not. It would only know what it's trained to know. ChatGPT's training is closed. It does not learn from conversations beyond the one it is having in the current session with the current user. That's a safeguard against what happened with Microsoft's "learning" AI, Tay. Players could manipulate a "learning" DM.
EDIT: One can guide ChatGPT in a session to give DM-like responses, but that's the user who guided the algorithmic clever system to generate the responses by questions and statements made in that session. The question above was the only thing asked in a session, no prior prompting or questions. The deduction was its own trained data, nothing from me other than the question.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I like people. I like socializing. I don't need another way for me to avoid interaction with other human beings.
The beating heart of D&D is that it's an unscripted game of endless possibilities shared amongst friends. A computer AI version is at best a bad facsimile of the real game. It'd be like watching Asimo the Honda robot pretend to be human - we all know it's a fake and would never replace the real thing./cdn.vox-cdn.com/assets/781590/asimo.jpeg)
Are the WOTC A.I. systems going to allow you to have a conversation with an NPC, and try and convince them verbally to do something different from what they were going to do?
Can the A.I. handle describing the situation within a throne room of somebody being knighted?
How is the WOTC A.I. going to be different or better than the game engine of Neverwinter nights, or similar video games?
You cannot in Neverwinter Knights say “I roll an athletics check to shove the blacksmith into his own forge”—an AI could do something like that.
Which is why I don’t think there is a congruency between video games and an AI DM - they offer different things. Just like D&D video games did not replace tabletop DMs (and an AI DM cannot ever truly replace a human DM), a competent AI DM would fill its own niche, functioning more like an old text based adventure—just one that can react to any possible input instead of requiring very, very specific commands.
In doing so, it could fill a nice middle ground for someone who wants greater freedom than a computer game would allow, but who is not able to join a human group/wants to play more often than their human group does/etc.
An AI won’t be anywhere close to as good as a real DM anytime soon. Not until Google launches SkyNet at any rate. I say nay nay to AI DMs.
Did you miss the part where I said any AI DM WotC gives us wont be half as good as as AI dungeon which itself has issues. Nowhere did I say a WotC AI DM would be good, what I said is it's not a terrible idea. Do I think anyone has an AI right now that could to the job no, in a few years though especially at the rate AI is advancing I could see it.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Even with the rudimentary AI we have now, there are some very key differences between them and traditional scripted video games. For example, Natural Language Processing means the AI can parse a much wider range of PC actions than a videogame can. And Predictive Analytics means that monsters can anticipate your tactics in challenging or thrilling ways.
There's also useful aspects to AIs that aren't directly related to DMing, like image processing for quickly loading new maps into a VTT grid, or speech-based search to quickly look things up on the fly ("what's the difference between Restrained and Paralyzed again?")
For those who haven't seen it yet. Pop over to this thread and read the adventure that I had ChatGPT run for me. This was with no practical training.
It wasn't running "D&D 5e" mechanics, but it did a decent job running a "dice based adventure". The actual rules could be hard coded into an A.I. DM for practical reasons.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/162490-chatgpt-is-not-a-good-dm#c11