this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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RPG

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Discussion of table top roleplaying games.

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I'll start with a little bit of background. I moved to a different country just about two years ago and I have been slowly working on the language. I haven't had many close friends who share similar interests with me. I also don't care for the online games. Those reasons combined I haven't played d&d in just about those two years.

Someone suggested ChatGPT to me for an unrelated reason. I was impressed and then I was suggested to try a text adventure with it. And to put it lightly I was a little bit blown away. I'll admit, I even dropped a 20 to use the GPT-4. At this point, I think I have a mild addiction, as I've been spending a lot of my free time continuing our adventure.

But back to my original question. Have I just been this starved of role playing games that I think this is amazing? Or is it actually this good? What's your opinion on these AI when it comes to RPGs?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

You get to throw dice w/ a D&D ruleset, but it's skyrim radiant quests forever. It's just not the same IMO.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would never see it as a replacement, but if you are having a lot of fun with it, why does it matter? Do what brings you joy.

The social aspect for me is WAY too big a part of RPGs in general. LLMs don't fulfill that at all for me. It is just a robot that knows what words goes in what order, there is no back an forth or creative creation between people with different life experiences or ideas of what "cool" or "interesting" is. Getting to chat with my friends and share in their creative space is so awesome. I am an online only player these days because it is the only way I can find time and connect with friends across borders - I don't feel online detracts from the experience, sure it is different than in person, but once you have a good group it's just a good time with friends.

Personally I have used LLMs as part of my GM prep. Mostly just to fill in things I don't really care about (like a minor detail of colours of unimportant objects a module left out) or to bounce ideas off, and to do a BUNCH of text formatting for me. It is a great tool to kickstart the process but I find I always have to sit down and actually do the work myself in the end.

I can see how being alone in a new place where you don't speak the language can very easily lead to an over reliance on good LLMs to take up some of that social space you might be used to. ChatGPT is an amazing thing, but we need to be aware for how and why we use it. Our monkey brains are easy to trick.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Totally agree with this. I think I've only tried ChatGTP 3.5, and perhaps 4.0 is better in this regard, but I noticed that it seemed pretty bad at coming up with original ideas. It could create usable scenarios, characters and dialogues for role playing, but everything felt very generic and stereotypical. IMO it was fun to play around with for a while, but I don't think it could keep me entertained for a longer period.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I noticed that it seemed pretty bad at coming up with original ideas.

I mean yeah it is a language model that is trained on things other people write and learn what the next word should be from that (and some blackbox stuff). It's fun to play around with for sure, but we as user need to be better at understand what the tech actually is rather than just pretend it is a Sci-fi AI... Because holy shit it is not, all that AI stuff is marketing and tech people trying to make us think it is just like in that movie we like or whatever... Why I try and be so hard about LLM as the term rather than AI.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It's a bit scary how much some people trust the output from ChatGPT.. I've seen people who have asked some technical Linux questions and copied the results to a terminal (or their GRUB config) without hesitation. I think they're getting confused because it sounds so confident even if it's just making stuff up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are plenty of solo resources available. All you need is an oracle and your imagination. You don't need ChatGPT.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Try Cairn or white Box with OSR Solo.

You'll thank me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've never used chatgpt like that, but it's probably okay to do so. One benefit is that you don't have to keep track of the details yourself or juggle a game system because the LLM does it for you. Here is a hackathon full of gpt prompts that might raise your game: https://flowgpt.com/bounty/PEeCw9RxAzmqEC7xt4KM4?promptId=FMEKZxl7wKLFlEwguqDY9

Keep in mind though that there is an entire cottage industry of very fun solo tabletop rpgs that you can play yourself. Here is a blog describing some different categories to help you search for one. There are also many top ten lists to point you in a good direction.

Itch.io has tons of them. Here is a tag cloud that will make you feel like a kid in a candy store: https://itch.io/physical-games/tag-solo-rpg/tag-ttrpg

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I will speak to my experiences with it.

I love solo roleplaying; I've been doing it for years. I was super excited with the advent of Dungeon AI, ChatGPT, NovelAI, and others. I have tried them all extensively. What I have found is that they are great sounding boards for generating ideas, descriptions, and even, sometimes, dialog.

However, AI is not quite ready to replace a DM. I've found that the stories it produces are very flat and repetitive. What's more, they become very predictable once you realize that they act a bit like lucid dreams--it's very easy to influence the story, even accidentally, by what you say.

Used in conjunction with a solo oracle, like Mythic GME, it can be a great asset.

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