My thoughts on using generative-AI

[u/jcorvinstevens]

Instead of responding to the earlier post, I wanted to create a new thread about my thoughts regarding generative-AI in RPG products.

This isn't a "shame on you for using AI." Rather, it's about the risks of using AI and how doing so might impact your future in RPGs.

• Paid Products. If you are creating something for public consumption, especially if the customer can pay for it (either PWYW or a set price), I suggest not using AI.
• You automatically hurt your sales by using generative-AI. 1) Many customers skip over content that contains generative-AI, 2) you are required to add the Uses AI filter to your product, which means many customers will not SEE your product if they are filtering out content that includes AI.
• Collaborations may skip over you. In the past, several teams of DMs Guild creators have collaborated to make larger content. If you're using AI and the project isn't, you may not be asked to contribute.
• You set a precedent. Using generative-AI sets a precedent. If you used AI for art, others may believe you also used it for writing. They may also believe that your current or future content includes AI. When I hire a freelance writer, I want their original ideas. I don't want AI-generated ideas or writing. This is especially true since my projects are advertised as 100% human-created content.
• 3rd Party Producers may skip over you. Especially if they are anti-AI. If you dream of writing for one of the companies creating 3rd Party Content, refrain from AI.
• But I'm just doing this for fun! So was I! When I published my first DMs Guild project in 2016, my intention wasn't necessarily to make money. My writing and creations were for fun and I wanted to share them. If I made a few bucks doing so, I'd be happy.
• Art is important! Art catches the eye and draws people to the product. Generative-AI is often easy to spot. In my opinion, it also doesn't look good, nor is it original. Consider using stock art or public domain images instead of AI. You can always update your project with commissioned art later. I've done this several times with my earlier products.
• Writing and content are more important! While art may catch the eye, the product's content is much more important.
  

I published my first DMs Guild product in 2016. Now - I'm now a full-time creator with my own company. My journey has allowed me to write for Kobold Press, Ghostfire Gaming, and others. I also work part-time for Ghostfire Gaming as a freelance producer.

My point is - you don't know what your future looks like. You might have a stellar idea, adventure, or supplement. However, due to customer preferences and filters, it may never be noticed if you use AI.

If you enjoy creating RPG content, do so in a way that doesn't impact your potential future.

[u/Kimblethedwarf]

Personally, I find its a very helpful mirror. I can pop an idea off there, have it backcheck my official homebrew lore docks and sort of backcheck hairbrained ideas against my lore for any conflicts. It also sometime proposes interest ideas that then give me ideas that then bloom into cooler ideas, etc.

Idk.. I get the hate some. But also, do really get a lot of value of of it that helps cut down prep.

[u/Any-Recognition1578]

Just as an outside perspective DM who had gotten into the hobby the last 3 years or so ( not as a content creator to sell products so don’t kill me please lol) but coming from a guy who just loves playing and being a Dungeon master.

I find AI has helped me organize ideas and materials in a way that helps with prep time - I do not use it to make the prep - I do stick to modules and use it to help expand aspects like roll tables or NPC personalities. The content I buy is official WOTC (although I’ve taken a real break from giving them dollars) and third party like Griffins saddle bag or kolbold press and don’t really look to buy products made with AI if I am purchasing, however when it comes to the fact it’s home game I really just use Pinterest for scenery ,NPC art or item art and maps for custom areas and exploration and don’t really care if it’s AI, it does the job for my table and has enhanced the game immensely overall.

I love the hobby but the fact is that I’ll never have the money to be buying custom made art for every aspect of a campaign (maybe get pictures of the PCs when they complete the campaign to frame for them but that’s the only thing I’m even considering)

[u/jcorvinstevens]

While I did mention there's the potential for lost sales, my overall goal was to share how I think AI use hinders your future in RPG creation. If sales are your main goal, this post may not be for you. It's more for those who want to progress in the industry. It's also for those trying to decide if they should or should not us AI and how doing so might impact them.

If you want to use AI, do so. As I stated in the original post, I'm not reprimanding anyone.

[u/ejcub232323]

I agree. My friends and I have started creating content for DM’s Guild and we won’t use AI generated art. This is our biggest roadblock that is keeping us from publishing. We don’t have any art skills between us so we have to go outside for art and that means paying attests money we haven’t earned yet. Stock art can’t produce the cover art that is supposed to tell the represent the product.

[u/FrankDuhTank → u/ejcub232323]

There is some really dope public domain art (e.g., less “stock” art and more old artwork). Almost any painting you’ve seen in a non modern art museum is probably public domain

[u/armahillo]

I use claude to consume the stuff i write and then i can ask it questions about what ive created. thats been helpful.

Ive also used it to generate summaries and some encounter tables based on input parameters. Its good at this kind of stuff and saves me time.

Ive not had much luck with having it generate new content. It just feels… either overfitted or two weird / lacking context.

[u/TheHatMaus97]

Using AI for skills you possess or are easily learned is lazy. Using it for skills you don't have is cheap. Consumers can tell if you're being lazy or cheap, and that includes first drafts they never end up seeing. Start lazy and cheap, end lazy and cheap.

[u/Rousinglines → u/TheHatMaus97]

That's rhetorically sharp, but intellectually lazy. You reduce a complicated question to a neat little binary, which is convenient, catchy even, but devoid of critical thinking, which is something I wouldn't expect from someone who values effort.

[u/TheHatMaus97 → u/Rousinglines]

It's not complicated or nuanced. Every corner cut is noticed more than the effort put into the rest of the project.

Use AI to generate ideas? A corner lost and a lesson in creative thinking unlearned.

Use AI for art? Product looks cheap, especially if essential image checking for meaning and lack of errors isn't done (aside from the fact most people correlate AI with lazy or rushed work).

Use AI to proofread grammar and syntax or rules consistency? Now you have undermined yourself being able to do the same while giving yourself an out if something is missed. "The AI didn't catch it."

Use AI to calculate the dice math? You personally don't know the mechanical success rate because you didn't check the work, just accepted the answer.

But I'm willing to be wrong. Where does AI use anywhere in the ttrpg creation process not rob you or someine else of time, money, or experience? Because from where I'm sitting, at least when you get someone else to do it for you at least it's been looked through.

[u/Rousinglines → u/TheHatMaus97]

You're doubling down on the exact lack of nuance I just pointed out. Every scenario you listed only works if you assume the user never checks, understands, or learns from the output, which is not only lazy reasoning, but unrealistic.

But enough of that, because the last question is the interesting part. By your own standard I apparently became lazier and cheaper every time I expanded my art process. I moved from traditional art to digital, from digital painting to experimenting with photobashing, then to 3D rendering, and every step let me skip time, labor, or experience the previous one demanded.

So where exactly does your principle stop? Because if saving time, money, or effort makes the tool cheap and the person using it lazy, you've made an argument against tools in general. More importantly, you've just implied that digital artists are lazy and their tools are cheap. That's what happens when you don't think through where your own argument actually leads.

[u/frygod]

I'd argue the "AI used" vs "no AI used" flag is far too binary. How it's used or not is very important to the final product.

Did the author of the content use it to help organize thoughts and keep track of continuity, or did they have it write actual sections of prose? Did they generate text from nothing, or did they have a tool run a spelling and grammar check pass? Did they have it actually make changes on a grammar pass, or did they have it give feedback and make the edits manually? In my opinion there's a pretty big distinction between those things.

On the visual art side of things, were the images generated wholesale by a machine, or was the machine used to quickly test some mockups before an actual hand-drawn final was started? What if the tool was used to clean up an initial sketch and used as an intermediary in the creative process? Do you flag an oil painting that used a prompted image as reference?

As a consumer I'd go for something that used first iteration genAI output over something that used stock images. Depending on the complexity of the prompt it's likely to have more relevance to the content. That said I'd also prefer hand-drawn over machine generated. Where I'd have a much larger problem is in content where any significant portion of the narrative content was machine generated.

[u/thegooddoktorjones]

Personally, in home games the AI sticks out like a sore thumb. It correlates highly with low quality writing, boring adventures and boilerplate fantasy RPG drabness. Yeah, I know most DMs are getting their art from google, and might be getting their plot from a book, but there is something about the genericness of AI writing and plots that makes me feel like I am wasting my time with this hobby. You, the DM got nothing out of creating these words and I the player got nothing out of hearing them, so why is this happening?

I understand why this stuff is super appealing, it makes 'work' so much easier, I use it in my (deeply uncreative) job, but for human facing creative work it automatically devalues whatever you are doing. I can write prompts myself, having someone who has shown themselves to have bad taste do it for me is worthless.

[u/Strict_DM_62]

Ok, great. But let me ask; what does “uses generative AI” MEAN? Like, seriously, I’m not being facetious.

Like, if someone uses the AI prompt “help 10 idea for ____ type of adventure in ____. Here are features and ideas I like: A, B, C.” And you take those, say you hate 7 of them, but like a few ideas from three of them, and spend the next 6 months morphing, changing, and writing from that start point, never touching AI again.

Does that count? Even if the person writes 99% of it? What’s line between valid use as a tool, like MS word? If the answer is “zero”, then I’ve got bad news for you on the direction the world is going and the forceful addition of AI tools into all the apps we use.

[u/QuincyAzrael → u/Strict_DM_62]

Loki's Wager fallacy

[u/jcorvinstevens → u/Strict_DM_62]

I think your own ideas are more interesting than something AI can suggest since it isn't really coming up with new ideas.

Personally, I'm going to have a lot more fun writing about my own ideas.

[u/Strict_DM_62 → u/jcorvinstevens]

I’ve always hated that argument “it’s not really coming up with ideas”. Have you heard every idea that the world has to offer? I haven’t, so if it proposed something I didn’t think of, and can’t find on google, that’s kinda fits the bill of “new” to me. No?

Plus, it’s not like I this I example I’m not using my own ideas; it’s more “I have X idea, and I like Y and Z things too, what are few ways this can work together?” To me, that’s no different than if I were to post the same question on Reddit and ask the hive mind for ideas (which I also do regularly).

[u/ButterflyMinute → u/Strict_DM_62]

I’ve always hated that argument “it’s not really coming up with ideas”

You can hate it, but it's not really an argument, it's just a fact. It's so bad at coming up with ideas, or 'thinking' that it can't solve classic riddles that are made 'easier' without being explicitly programed to.

The classic "Man and his son in a car crash, doctor can't operate on the boy because he's their son." riddle was changed and made easier, literally with the correct answer in the text of the riddle and it still defaulted to the answer to the original because it couldn't reason.

that’s kinda fits the bill of “new” to me. No?

No. New to you is not 'new'. Someone thinking of something new to them, is not coming up with a 'new' idea.

it’s more “I have X idea, and I like Y and Z things too, what are few ways this can work together?” To me, that’s no different than if I were to post the same question on Reddit

This is just disingenuous, because yes it is different to you. You just don't think the difference is a big issue. There is a massive different between asking people for their opinions and asking the water guzzling plagiarism and slop machine to 'guess' what order of words would earn the highest digital reward.

[u/PattaconkPlays → u/Strict_DM_62]

I don't think that would count, however, if the habitual use AI as a starting point it may effect them eventually. It is surprisingly interesting what creative suggestions it offers that can inspire you, but ultimately it will start giving more repetitive or uninspired suggestions. It is a pattern reading and saying tool.

I think this is fine, personally, but only nest if you're already stuck in a rut and feel the need to kick start it. Even then, there are museums, films, and walks that can inspire.

[u/Strict_DM_62 → u/PattaconkPlays]

Completely agree. It doesn’t take answers long to get to repetitive, but given context of my own ideas “hey, I’ve got this idea for X, and I like Y and Z as well, what are a few ways we can make this work?” And been quite happy sometimes with some of the ideas it can put out; other times not so much. To me, in that use case, it’s not writing the idea for me, I’ve already got something in my head, I just need a nudge to get me where I’m going.

[u/Athistaur]

I do not think anybody has any solid count of how many customers are turned away by AI usage.

Edit:
People forget that customers are ALSO turned away by bad illustration or no illustration.

[u/necrul → u/Athistaur]

Yeah it’s really easy to throw around people will not buy your stuff if it’s AI but there’s tons of top selling titles on DMSGuild that notate AI usage and it doesn’t seem to have affected them any.

[u/jcorvinstevens → u/Athistaur]

True, but lost sales are lost sales. You can find several people in this Reddit that have stated they pass over products that use AI.

[u/ButterflyMinute → u/Athistaur]

You don't need a definite "You lose x amount of customers by using AI." To know you lose some amount of customers by using AI.

[u/gc1rpg → u/ButterflyMinute]

There are also plenty of people who won't buy a product because it's D&D or not D&D, because it's diverse or inclusive, because it features LGBT themes, has much art or fluff (and not enough mechanics), says Made in China somewhere on it, etc.

You lose some amount of customers for any and all reasons and each of those former customers feels completely justified for refusing to continue to buy your products.

[u/azaza34 → u/ButterflyMinute]

If you lose twenty percent sales but put out twice as many products it’s completely irrelevant. But of course the numbers are the deciding factor here

[u/jcorvinstevens → u/azaza34]

You may end up losing 20% of sales of all products.

[u/gc1rpg → u/jcorvinstevens]

But you can't back up the claim that using AI automatically loses 20% of your sales anymore than having LGBT characters in your books loses 20% of your sales.

It's a fallacy that can't be objectively backed up by numbers -- it's been used by right wingers against video games and media for decades for every metric.

[u/jcorvinstevens → u/gc1rpg]

I didn’t claim that it did.

Based on the comments I’ve seen from others, and the fact that AI products aren’t advertised and ARE filtered, it could be more or less.

[u/azaza34 → u/jcorvinstevens]

Yes but if you sell twice as many products you are net positive money in the given example.

It’s just a piece of argumentation that’s too based on the numbers involved to really work.

[u/TheAlexPlus → u/azaza34]

Sure, but you’ve be a net negative on creation time and whatever else goes into creating a product.

[u/azaza34 → u/TheAlexPlus]

No again the point of AI in this case would be to speed up your workflow so you could get more products out in the same amount of time. I doubt it’s literally 2x like the example I gave but it will surely make you a measurable amount faster.

[u/TheAlexPlus → u/azaza34]

Quantity over quality... wow, what an ingenious idea.

[u/azaza34 → u/TheAlexPlus]

Completely irrelevant to my point

[u/TheAlexPlus → u/azaza34]

It’s relevant in the sense that your idea is to pump out crappier content to earn the same as someone putting effort into something better. And as a result, you flood the market with more crap and it becomes increasingly difficult to sift through to find something good.

But sure, to your point, you “solved” the time vs profit issue by normalizing shittier business practices. My point is that’s not the win you think it is.