It's been so nice. I just asked it to make a list of common magical items and pick a random one. If it picks a scroll I can ask it to assign it a random spell. I can ask it to pick a random item that's not a consumable from the list.
Sometimes I ask it to generate a description and then I tweak it.
I find it more usable for building minor portions of my setting. If i need some quick fire buildings for a city that aren't core to my campaign, chatgpt or AI in general does a pretty solid job of giving you a brief interior/exterior of a building, and can give you a type of creature/race/species/whatever you wish to refer to it as (the names usually aren't quite right for the choice unless it's human). It does a better job of cutting time out of these places.
I also find it acceptable when trying to build characters in the model of a specific character. For example, i asked it to make Kefka (final fantasy VI) like evil baddie, but rather than asking for what type of skills they should have in combat i asked them to give me a brief backstory, and give me some entry points for conflicts that would cross paths with the group, and it also did a really solid job of this.
It is "reasonable" at scaling enemies for a homebrew campaign. You can give it pretty detailed prompts or pretty basic, and then build on it from there. It is awful at experience conversions and CR rates though, so you'll have to make some calls on what exp values to assign by judging the CR more directly yourself and making a more reasonable guesstimate.
It is "mediocre" at making small side quests. It basically just rips them from other campaigns or modules it finds.
It is terrible at understanding your campaign. You have to make that work still on your own to be quite honest, it fails miserably. But honestly, if you were reliant to this extent it's better off just to take a module and slightly reskin it with a few wrinkles to keep people honest. So this aspect isn't a big deal.
After evaluating what it was good at, i still use it a lot for the 1st point, the convenience is too strong. I can definitely get behind what it makes there and add details as needed and feel comfortable describing it. The rest are more hit and miss. I occasionally use it for a bit of info on combat creature or npcs or something, but overall i find that i have a better feel for homebrew scaling
I use it for NPC portraits and visuals for my games.
I also build templates for NPCs to quickly generate someone I didn't expect to need and get their personality, wants, needs, issues, etc., on a level that lets me embellish and add to it to make it fit the game.
I find Chat GPT to be a great sounding board but a terrible lead designer. It's truly helpful when I'm brainstorming or catching unexpected ideas on a topic.
I will sometimes use ChatGPT to help me elaborate on my storylines. After DMing for (mumble)(mumble) years, sometimes the ideas all start blending together and it's nice to get some suggestions for branching out in directions I might not have considered.
ChatGPT is really great for when you have written something and you want to do something with the text. For example, give it more flare, shorten it, turn it into bullet points or ask the AI to elaborate.
Its best when you have already done some work and you use it to enhance your work, its very poor at creating original works.
I use it for some custom items, monsters, etc. I normally have to heavily edit it for hours to get it perfect (I enjoy it though. I just blast tunes for 6 and a half hours, typing for most of it and saying "What the hell?!" for the rest of it). It does small tasks pretty well. If you have an account, it works so much better. If it's worth it, that is up to you.
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In the words of the great philosopher, Unicorse, "Aaaannnnd why should I care??"
Best quote from a book ever: "If you love with your eyes, death is forever. If you love with your heart, there is no such thing as parting."- Jonah Cook, Ascendant, Songs of Chaos by Michael R. Miller. Highly recommend
I've used mine to flesh out 100+ townspeople based on area of town, species, gender, job, alignment, etc. I've utilized it to set major scenes and to generate letters to characters from important NPCs or groups. I've also utilized it to develop magic items, unique ships, important NPCs (with background and equipment), and the like. It's very handy for quickly fleshing out pieces of a campaign that are often overlooked or have to be developed on the fly (no more shopkeepers named Bob!).
I have also used it as a character to make a quick limerick for my bard; make witty quips for my BBEG, and the like. Lastly, I have dabbled in utilizing it for NPC or homebrew monster portraits.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
#OpenD&D #ORC
"...or you can find the secret tunnel that leads to the Vault of Dickish DM which is filled with 10,000,000 copper coins and a 5,000 pound solid gold statue of a middle finger that is too big to fit through the door."
I use ChatGPT (and Claude and Gemini) mainly to add flavor to my dungeons. I ask it about types of rock, or what are some naturally occuring dangerous phenomena underground. Recently it suggested acidic mist. I asked if that was a real thing and it said yes. How? I then added some magma and sulphur deposits and crafted a fun little corner of my dungeon that I never would have thought of by myself. We collaborated on a pinetree type treant. They're really good at things like generating riddles and poems, or funny gnome names. I'm new to 5e, so I often ask them about rules.
Edit: I'm done with Gemini. It occassionally decides that it's not going to answer me because of some unknowable safeguards. Today it helped me generate an idea for a demon, and then decided it wasn't going to answer anymore because reasons. It's not the first time, but it's the last for me. You don't get that nonsense from Claude (which is ironic becasue it's supposed to be the safe LLM)
I mostly use it for brainstorming and for coming up with custom NPCs/Monsters.
Brainstorming, I will give it a bit of background and ask for 5 different "things" for whatever I'm doing. Give me 5 different traps that might be encountered in this hideout. Give me 5 different random encounters that would fit in with this city. Give me 5 different ways the PCs could combat this ritual.
Much of what it generates is kind of generic and not well thought-out, but it can serve as an interesting launching platform for good ideas. Usually out of the 5 things I have it generate there might be 1 or 2 that lead to something fun/interesting that I wouldn't have thought of.
For NPCs/Monsters, it actually does a fairly decent job as fleshing out a quick stat-block for a type of monster if you give it some parameters. I'll use it to help brainstorm monster-specific abilities, lair actions, and Legendary actions. Again, it is best not to use directly whatever it produces, but as a very rough first draft it can work out pretty well.
It's been so nice. I just asked it to make a list of common magical items and pick a random one. If it picks a scroll I can ask it to assign it a random spell. I can ask it to pick a random item that's not a consumable from the list.
Sometimes I ask it to generate a description and then I tweak it.
If it works for you, use whatever you wish - but the only thing my extended group uses AI for is the creation of character portraits.
One person I know tried testing out various AI in making adventures, and it didn't end well - they quickly stopped trying.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
I find it more usable for building minor portions of my setting. If i need some quick fire buildings for a city that aren't core to my campaign, chatgpt or AI in general does a pretty solid job of giving you a brief interior/exterior of a building, and can give you a type of creature/race/species/whatever you wish to refer to it as (the names usually aren't quite right for the choice unless it's human). It does a better job of cutting time out of these places.
I also find it acceptable when trying to build characters in the model of a specific character. For example, i asked it to make Kefka (final fantasy VI) like evil baddie, but rather than asking for what type of skills they should have in combat i asked them to give me a brief backstory, and give me some entry points for conflicts that would cross paths with the group, and it also did a really solid job of this.
It is "reasonable" at scaling enemies for a homebrew campaign. You can give it pretty detailed prompts or pretty basic, and then build on it from there. It is awful at experience conversions and CR rates though, so you'll have to make some calls on what exp values to assign by judging the CR more directly yourself and making a more reasonable guesstimate.
It is "mediocre" at making small side quests. It basically just rips them from other campaigns or modules it finds.
It is terrible at understanding your campaign. You have to make that work still on your own to be quite honest, it fails miserably. But honestly, if you were reliant to this extent it's better off just to take a module and slightly reskin it with a few wrinkles to keep people honest. So this aspect isn't a big deal.
After evaluating what it was good at, i still use it a lot for the 1st point, the convenience is too strong. I can definitely get behind what it makes there and add details as needed and feel comfortable describing it. The rest are more hit and miss. I occasionally use it for a bit of info on combat creature or npcs or something, but overall i find that i have a better feel for homebrew scaling
I use it for NPC portraits and visuals for my games.
I also build templates for NPCs to quickly generate someone I didn't expect to need and get their personality, wants, needs, issues, etc., on a level that lets me embellish and add to it to make it fit the game.
I find Chat GPT to be a great sounding board but a terrible lead designer. It's truly helpful when I'm brainstorming or catching unexpected ideas on a topic.
I will sometimes use ChatGPT to help me elaborate on my storylines. After DMing for (mumble)(mumble) years, sometimes the ideas all start blending together and it's nice to get some suggestions for branching out in directions I might not have considered.
ChatGPT is really great for when you have written something and you want to do something with the text. For example, give it more flare, shorten it, turn it into bullet points or ask the AI to elaborate.
Its best when you have already done some work and you use it to enhance your work, its very poor at creating original works.
I use it for some custom items, monsters, etc. I normally have to heavily edit it for hours to get it perfect (I enjoy it though. I just blast tunes for 6 and a half hours, typing for most of it and saying "What the hell?!" for the rest of it). It does small tasks pretty well. If you have an account, it works so much better. If it's worth it, that is up to you.
In the words of the great philosopher, Unicorse, "Aaaannnnd why should I care??"
Best quote from a book ever: "If you love with your eyes, death is forever. If you love with your heart, there is no such thing as parting."- Jonah Cook, Ascendant, Songs of Chaos by Michael R. Miller. Highly recommend
I've used mine to flesh out 100+ townspeople based on area of town, species, gender, job, alignment, etc. I've utilized it to set major scenes and to generate letters to characters from important NPCs or groups. I've also utilized it to develop magic items, unique ships, important NPCs (with background and equipment), and the like. It's very handy for quickly fleshing out pieces of a campaign that are often overlooked or have to be developed on the fly (no more shopkeepers named Bob!).
I have also used it as a character to make a quick limerick for my bard; make witty quips for my BBEG, and the like. Lastly, I have dabbled in utilizing it for NPC or homebrew monster portraits.
#OpenD&D #ORC
"...or you can find the secret tunnel that leads to the Vault of Dickish DM which is filled with 10,000,000 copper coins and a 5,000 pound solid gold statue of a middle finger that is too big to fit through the door."
I use ChatGPT (and Claude and Gemini) mainly to add flavor to my dungeons. I ask it about types of rock, or what are some naturally occuring dangerous phenomena underground. Recently it suggested acidic mist. I asked if that was a real thing and it said yes. How? I then added some magma and sulphur deposits and crafted a fun little corner of my dungeon that I never would have thought of by myself. We collaborated on a pinetree type treant. They're really good at things like generating riddles and poems, or funny gnome names. I'm new to 5e, so I often ask them about rules.
Edit: I'm done with Gemini. It occassionally decides that it's not going to answer me because of some unknowable safeguards. Today it helped me generate an idea for a demon, and then decided it wasn't going to answer anymore because reasons. It's not the first time, but it's the last for me. You don't get that nonsense from Claude (which is ironic becasue it's supposed to be the safe LLM)
I use character AI mainly for brainstorming ideas I have for my worlds, then I build out from there
I mostly use it for brainstorming and for coming up with custom NPCs/Monsters.
Brainstorming, I will give it a bit of background and ask for 5 different "things" for whatever I'm doing. Give me 5 different traps that might be encountered in this hideout. Give me 5 different random encounters that would fit in with this city. Give me 5 different ways the PCs could combat this ritual.
Much of what it generates is kind of generic and not well thought-out, but it can serve as an interesting launching platform for good ideas. Usually out of the 5 things I have it generate there might be 1 or 2 that lead to something fun/interesting that I wouldn't have thought of.
For NPCs/Monsters, it actually does a fairly decent job as fleshing out a quick stat-block for a type of monster if you give it some parameters. I'll use it to help brainstorm monster-specific abilities, lair actions, and Legendary actions. Again, it is best not to use directly whatever it produces, but as a very rough first draft it can work out pretty well.
Ai never works for me it always has like no fighting