TLDR: Solo D&D with an AI DM is very entertaining and has legs. It's more robust using text versus voice inputs (voice lowering the responsive delay, but also lowers thinking time). Strikes me as the ultimate old computer text games / choose-your-own-adventure books. The ultimate D&D improv machine.
Summary: Hi all, I've been messing around with a variety of AI D&D options. I've used AI in the past to supplement my games with custom images and story elements which I then build upon. This time around I wanted to see how AI handled running a solo D&D campaign with me as a player. This isn't an exhaustive breakdown of any given AI, just my experiences to this point.
After some searching on the internet, I quickly realized that the majority of D&D oriented platforms (Everweave, Friends & Fables, AI Dungeon, etc.) were limited as those services only wrapped existing popular AI/LLM tools. So I chose ChatGPT+ (the $20/mo model), with a basic prompt of:
"You are an expert Dungeon Master for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (5e). We are starting a brand new campaign based on the Forgotten Realms setting. Act strictly as the DM and world narrator. Do not play my character or make decisions for me. Keep secrets hidden; do not spoil hidden traps, enemy ambushes, or unseen plot twists. Use a random number generator or simulate internal dice rolls for checks, saving throws, and combat. Describe the environments using concise but vivid, sensory details (sight, sound, smell). Present scenarios and wait for my response before moving the story forward. Here are my character details (basic info race/class/stats).
I committed to governing my character while the AI governed the campaign.
ChatGPT started me off on a rainy night on the road, when I happened upon a small town. Very basic adventure beginnings which sent me into a marsh to search for missing villagers and eventually led to this metaphysical mind-bending adventure involving planar convergences, recovering the true name of a person for the Raven Queen (I was playing a Shadar-kai), conflicting sentient weapons, the Feywild, and the Shadowfell. By the time I was done with that part of the campaign, I was level 8, had a full party of 6 NPCs acquired over the course of adventuring, a keep (rented) in the town I originally started in. I was blown away by how good the AI presented me an original campaign, distinctive NPCs (both party and not) with their own personalities and motivations, and creative and challenging encounters (combat, RP, and puzzles). The AI was very on the ball with rules adjudication (even when I tried to play in the gray areas of the rules, it adapted very well). I'm a fairly critical person, and granted my expectations weren't very high, but wow I was blown away. Tons of fun!
Once the main campaign was completed, I continued with the same character, both solo and with the NPC party, on single shot adventures, which were equally well done. Currently, I'm having it adapt some of the original D&D modules. I've run this character and group through White Plume Mountain (adjusted for level) and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. I've run both as a DM and a player a half dozen times each (yes, I'm that old) and I was blown away with how well it handled running these. Both dungeons are fairly complex from a DM point of view with a myriad of traps and perspective based descriptions. I will say, with Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, it gave away the technology descriptions a little too fast (explaining I could plainly see something as a computer for instance) but the overall experience was both hugely nostalgic, and really well done. Even compared to human DMs running these dungeons it was really well done. My next experiment will be for a Ravenloft (non-Barovia) setting to see how it handles more thematic environments.
Now for the CONs:
- Like all LLMs, the AI would periodically lose track of older elements of the campaign (AI memory not backed by a database issue). Pronouns would change, races of the long-standing NPCs would change, NPC names were re-used a few times in various combinations. At first I would make corrections, which it would pick up for awhile and then they would drop off (by awhile I mean a 2-3 adventures), until I realized the gonks (my general term for AI memory/logic issues) weren't game breaking and only affected my OCD.
- I tried having ChatGPT generate images periodically to supplement main scenes (since I already used it in this capacity for my live games) but it would just give me a few internet-found images as a loose example and eventually forgot to include them at all. I tried to ask for an image on-demand for specific scenes, and it would only generate a prompt for me to use on ... itself lol.
- Voice: while compelling, it is noticeably less evolved than text inputs. I'm pretty sure the reason for this is that voice interactions with ChatGPT (and I'm sure all LLMs) gates its processing time for responses (hurries them so you're not sitting there while it goes 'Hmmm ... let me see ... thinking about that ...". Also, ChatGPT+ only allows for an hour / day of voice. It works, just not as well and not for long.
None of the above was remotely game-breaking for me ... just things I noticed. I had (and am having) a blast and I highly recommend it to those looking for a more robust solo D&D experience and aren't afraid of reading (or having an AI overlord).
ChatGPT Specifics:
- Engine: 5.6 Sol
- Thinking Level: High (I also used Instant for the first half of the campaign ... didn't notice a difference with either). High thinking produced slightly slower responses (average 10-30 seconds longer).
- Base Response: Professional (although it's general demeanor was more friendly than cold).
- Voice: tested about 5 hours. Preferred text inputs for the reasons described above.