AI & RPGs

So...

 Is it just me, or does it seem that AI is attempting to find its way into the world of RPGs? The past few years have seen numerous AI controversies, the latest shitstorm being an article by 4 Pillar Games (who?)  about the late great Greg Stafford. Chaosium issued a rebuke, citing the lack of 'human care and creativity' in the piece, while acknowledging the growing use of AI tools in content creation.

And Chaosium is totally right to point this out, and have put their money where their mouth is by issuing a strict no AI policy for RPG art and content.

But the tide of AI slop will keep trying to seep into the once welcoming alehouse of roleplaying games. How can we fight this trend?

We have to know what to look out for.

Danger #1 The Corporate Boardroom

Of course, the ones pushing AI are corporations and the billionaires behind them. The CEO of D&D took flak in 2022 for complaining that the game was 'undermonetized'. Since then, D&D editions have split into more costly books, with proposed subscription plans designed to make players into the golden goose. But 'monetization' in the age of AI means getting machines to do for free what humans do for pay, and AI is being positioned to replace the unpaid labour of the DM. Just look at the proliferation of AI SaaS to run a game for you, which is still in the slop stage, but getting better by learning from those brave enough to try it.

We've seen this pattern before with tech, of people wielding the tools that are later used to destroy their livelihood. I myself paid off my MA student loans translating communications for Japanese car makers, but the Trados database I was forced to compile was later sold to corporations to train LLMs. When the 'translate' button appeared on my workplace email in Japan in 2020, I was happy to save hours reading Japanese and letting AI do all the work for me, but knew I could never make a dime translating as I once did.

These corporate types don't realize that one of the joys of D&D or any roleplaying game is making your own content and not being limited to game company products. I would say that the often mentioned shortage of DMs is due to the thankless work of mastering the games rules and a scenario of varying quality, while also paying for costly books. With AI, instead of a group sitting around a table, they offer to cut you off and let you play anywhere, anytime, which like many AI developments, seems to both shoot itself in the foot by eliminating paying customers, while totally misunderstanding the human or social aspect of what they are replacing.

Speaking of tools...

Danger #2 Technical Tools

Besides the corporate pressure to use AI to play games, AI in tools used for art and composition are almost impossible to avoid these days. Readers may recall that I had an AI scare where a designer's Photoshop that incorporated AI tools had added an extra finger to a character in a cover. The designer apologized, refunded payment, and explained that with image manipulation, AI is impossible to avoid unless you turn off lots of functions, which defeats the purpose of the software.

Note that the designer was a friend who I knew for decades and trust implicitly. He is also a graphic designer who has worked in magazines that are in a downward spiral of cutting costs and personnel, and my friend has stayed employed by staying atop of his design craft and tools.

Which leads us to my next point...

Danger # 3 The Pressure To Be Professional

Looking at RPGs on Kickstarter or from game studios, I can say that RPG art has never been more polished. I myself have felt the pressure and doubted that my self-taught illustration skills, coming from a family of professional self-taught indigenous artists, would complement my game.

Now, I am staunchly confident in my 'outsider art' as perfect for NUNA. I am a fan of UK game designer Tanya Floaker, whose great indie zine style games are a treat to read, and something I hope to get to a gaming table soonish. The OSR has already proven that individual creators can make a go of it with compelling works, and Old School Essentials seems to have found its niche doing so. And since I've turned into a game designer, I have met so many indie designers working on their own game and pushing the envelope in ways that an AI never could.

Onward!

Danger # 4 Slop RPGS

At some point, an AI generated RPG will hit the market. If it hasn't happened already and gone unnoticed, I am sure it will happen soon, whether its producer (I won't call them creator) announces the fact or not.

I get a lot of RPG ads, and I have to say, lots of them LOOK like they are made or influenced by AI. There are generic fantasy RPGs that sound like every other fantasy heartbreaker out there, without any of the verve or passion of the OSR when it first started spitting out retroclones over a decade ago. Then there is the art, largely figures or portraits of faces without much expression, and devoid of the kinetic or frenzied action of early RPG amateur art.

Just as AI children's books have appeared and distributed soulless, derivative works into the hands (and minds) of babes, the danger of AI is not only profiting off gamers, but also poisoning the well of imagination and community by switching over from human creations & social games to pale AI imitations that isolate gamers even more.

Danger # 5 Commoditizing A Social Space

Between the corporate pressure to use AI to play games, its invisible seep into tools, the pressure to use AI to look professional while keeping costs low, and the inevitable appearance of Slop the RPG, all this leads to the danger of losing roleplaying as a valuable social space. I have so many conversations with fellow Stormbringer enthusiasts about how online gaming is a pale substitute for sitting around a table, weaving tales and rolling dice together. What will be even worse is if people are playing RPGs run by AI whose only programming is to flatter the ego and pastiche all that has come before, and that was scraped from human works without permission or payment. I am happy that Free League AND Goodman Games will be making their own Stormbringer games, as both companies excel in getting people back to the gaming tables with their high quality, human-designed products that epitomize love for the game and gamers.

Conclusion - Folk Resistance

When I started this blog back 13 years ago as the first wave of the OSR abated, I was doing it mostly out of nostalgia and an unfulfilled creative urge. Now, I see it as both a creative outlet for me, as well as a source of deeply sociological games that represent people who have been portrayed stereotypically in media, such as indigenous people and the Japanese.

Now I am happy to consider my efforts in making a game as an additional part of the folk resistance against an unnecessary and exploitative technology that is being rammed down our throats in ways that destroy both our social bonds, natural environment, and economic viability.

Viva la resistance!

Sources

"Statement from Suzanne Stafford and Chaosium regarding a recent AI-generated article about Chaosium founder Greg Stafford." chaosium.com

https://www.chaosium.com/blogstatement-from-suzanne-stafford-and-chaosium-regarding-a-recent-aigenerated-article-about-chaosium-founder-greg-stafford/?srsltid=AfmBOoqJjAlPemRnG4GhbaPND0mk6nlFs2nS9BOC9H48F9GG1luDoxku

Wizards of the Coast Believes D&D Is "Under-Monetized" 80lv.

https://80.lv/articles/wizards-of-the-coast-believes-d-d-is-under-monetized

"I Tried AI D&D So You Don't Have To."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhGn0SagCkQ

Chaosium no AI policyhttps://www.chaosium.com/blogfrom-the-qa-our-creator-contracts-require-work-submitted-to-be-creators-original-work-and-not-contain-any-ai-generated-art-or-text/?srsltid=AfmBOorjFhgE1Kn72HyfXV1CHMwCWPBdaBPip7mY3091PZwKMJEVWVxo

Elric Comes TWICE!

Last week I posted that there seems to be a bit of an Elric / Moorcock revival going on, based on the proliferation of Elric or pro-Moorcock content on YouTube..

Then the RPG world exploded with TWO big announcements.

TWO HARBINGERS

First, Free League announced an Elric RPG based on Dragonsbane.

Then, Goodman games of Dungeon Crawl Classics announced THEIR Elric game.

What do I make of these announcements?

Nobody asked for it, but here are my two Large Bronzes.

THE ONE I AM BUYING

I don't think it is any surprise but I will be ordering Free League's game. Dragonbane from what I have read is a spiritual successor to the old Chaosium games, and from what I know probably fits between the original Stormbringer and the fanmade Barbarians of Lemur hack floating around on the inter webs in terms of mechanics.

Content wise, if Free League can do LotR right, I'm interested to see what they'll do with the Young Kingdoms.

As for DCC/5E, I am largely over the OSR and vanilla fantasy. I am also moving past my distaste of 5E - I appreciate that people play it for relaxation, don't really use the rules, and make meme characters for laughs. Good on them, and a good antidote to the tiring corporate touting of D&D as "world's greatest" and the glut of 5E products.

I am a proud member of the I'm Begging You To Play Another RPG FB page, where we regularly promote indie and lesser known TRPGs and bag on 5E / WotC marketing bloat. But I also feel that people should play what they want (while hopefully trying new things), and Goodman Games are experts in both marketing and getting people to the table.

So I wish them well, and would sit in on a game in a heartbeat.

WHICH ONE SHOULD YOU GET?

If you got the cash, why not get both? The older editions have doubled or trebled in price the past few years, so this may be the only way to get an affordable official Elric game.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

I'll go out on a limb and say that with this much buzz, an Elric TV show or movie is nigh inevitable. If the suits catch on that The Witcher is an Elric pastiche, they might bankroll the project. However, their interference might also make it go pear shaped.

In my dream dimension, Ralph Bakshi has come out of retirement to make it. Dude made Fire and Ice and Wizards, the Secret of Nimh. He can do no wrong in my book.

Exciting (and unsettling) days ahead for us Moorcock lovers! I hope that Michael is getting a well deserved cut of the proceeds.

Alien RPG

I'm reading the Alien RPG by Free League between teaching online classes and time spent with sonny while he's at home from school.

It is brilliantly done. The art alone makes it worth the price of admission - kind of like those old Ralph Mcquarrie concept art books for Star Wars that made you wish the films had looked that badass.

I had an idea of making my own Alien RPG on an OSR chassis, but alas it has been a busy first 2 years as prof. My concept was as follows:

1) An Alien RPG needs easy chargen and lethality
2) It needs story elements that subvert or short circuit the cruelty of the dice
3) It needs a great take on the setting, which I called 'Corporate Space'

Free League has accomplished it all, and much better than I could have.

Although I'm not near finished reading the tome (it is my cool down read between work and child rearing), here are some of my thoughts, good and bad:

STRESS MECHANIC

Whereas in other story games like GUMSHOE extra die pools empower PCs, as befitting the horror genre, this empowerment comes at an awful price in Alien. If things keep getting worse, this can lead to Panic, or loss of autonomy. Losing control is a hated fate in RPGs, and so leveraging this meta-fear for a horror game is very apt.

CANON TYRANNY VS BALANCE

If there is one complaint, it is that Free League have followed the canon too closely in some places, but missed useful tropes in others. Here are a few suggestions to spice the game up. Please note that I haven't finished reading the game as I mentioned, so they may have patched these up later.

Starbeast or Starbeasts?

The inclusion of Starbeast, a tell-all about the events of Alien 3 (ewww) that has become a banned book spreading stories across the frontier, is brilliant. However, I'd change it to Starbeasts, with stories of all kinds of aliens covered up by the corporate states, and have anyone caught reading it dismissed as a conspiracy nut, or else threatened with legal action or dismissal from contract. On the other hand, the book might allow a small bonus to Observation rolls about xenomorphs.

Androids don't use guns

I haven't gotten to the android rules yet, but if there is one rule they need to follow, it is their inability to use firearms. From Ash to David, to the chrome heads of Alien: Isolation, synthetics are scary enough without firearms. Add to this they are often overlooked as mere servants and, like David from Prometheus, and are in control of the ship, its life support systems, as well as able to beat down the average human, then androids are powerful enough, so should stick to this rule. Unless you need some badass synth killers for the Weyland-Yutani security teams.

Throw in a twist

As much as I love Alien and Aliens, in terms of horror and terror, the franchise is an example of diminishing returns. The producers of its sequels seem to think making the alien bigger and badder each time works to keep it 'fresh'.

It doesn't.

What works in horror is surprise, and the sudden powerlessness this instills in those who must face it.

For example, the sequels and prequels have hammered home that the xenomorph doesn't speak, but is just an animal, a perfect organism. However, in the original Alien script, after Ripley dies and the titular monster took over the controls of the lifeboat, it then speaks into the communication system at the end, calling out for other ships to rescue it.

Throwing in a twist like this means throwing out canon, but is the best way to keep players interested and on their toes.

Just imagine if a bunch of PCs is marooned on a mining asteroid with huge amoebas oozing from the walls and picking them off. Then a voice over the PA or commlink starts giving them directions where to go and how to get to safety. They follow the instructions and breathe a sigh of relief as they enter the airlock of a rescue ship only to see the talking alien behind the controls.

Fade to black.

Throw the players some surprises. Chuck in the Predator, the Thing, Silent Running, whatever, but make changes that are both unsettling and threatening.

A FREEBIE RANDOM TABLE

Alien and Aliens are known for their unforgettable characters, from Ripley and Ash to Hudson and Vasquez. What follows is a table that gives suggestions for unique characteristics for characters. Since the system uses only D6, that is all you need for this table.

What makes your character unique?

1 CLOTHES
1 Baseball hat 2 Sombrero 3 Hawaiian shirt 4 Cowboy boots 5 Dashiki 6 Kimono

2 ATTITUDE
1 Optimist 2 Pessimist 3 Realist 4 Dreamer 5 Schemer 6 Cocksure

3 FIXATION
1 Contracts 2 Getting home 3 Gear 4 Survival 5 Promotions 6 Solving mysteries

4 WORK ETHIC
1 Get it done 2 Avoid it 3 Do it right 4 Get someone to do it 5 Has to be done 6 We're in this together

5 APPEARANCE
1 Bald or bushy hair 2 Moustache or make up 3 Glasses 4 Tattoos or piercings 5 Scar or birthmark 6 Unique body type (1 fat 2 thin 3 tall 4 short 5 mixed race 6 albino)

6 NEVER GOES ANYWHERE WITHOUT
1 Pet 2 Picture 3 Weapon 4 Fiend 5 Tool 6 Toy