The RPG industry and AI

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aia

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I start seeing too many posts about AI across several RPG boards... This is a marker which makes me think we are close to a change...

First point: AI for images and graphics! Nearly one year ago the first tests appeared on RPG boards... They were far from being "good", now we have outcomes close to a real artwork... My thought before these events was that art could not be replaced by machines but i think i was wrong (if not art, at least images!). This is, useless to say, a game-changer in the market allowing small press/indie editors to play at a closer range with the big of the industry... This is also worrying as a craftmanship like a painter is going soon to be "replaced"...

Second point: if less than one year the progress on images has been so sharp, i wonder what it could be when AI will be applied to text and, as a consequence, to RPGs as well...

I have to admit that I have a mix of feelings, both good and bad... It is, at least, odd as I have not a clear idea of how things will develop...
 
Both of the major dms in my group are into it. It’s pretty popular on the Mythras discord as well. The art is getting good, with some work. I’ve seen some very stunning portraits out of mid journey. It does take some effort to speak the magic phrase and get the right seed.

initially, I think it’ll be an augment onto our own things. “Write a noir adventure that involves a statue of a falcon” and “find the most exploitable combos in these three feats” and the like. It’ll require some time though.
 
Art is I think easier. It's not like it's having ongoing interactions. It's taking an original group of tagged art and merging properties together.
In some ways it's just a response to a question.

A roleplaying session is a series of conversations with rules and history. The conversation has to flow to feel natural. It's a different merge in my mind than the art merge.

I suppose you could treat each players statements as a question. Say Frank says "I attack the orc with my sword!". The AI could translate that to "what happens when Frank attacks the orc with a sword?". That's sort of what you do with the Mythic GM emulator I believe.
 
From a copywriter point of view, I am entirely unworried by the possiblity of AI text. It already exists.

It hits people right at the bottom end; the content mills, the "cram 20 SEO keywords into a 200 word article" stuff.

But is it going to replace my detailed data analysis articles? Is it going to be able to get a high quality interview out of an inexperienced subject? Is it going to be able to work with footnote heavy research articles?

Not for the foreseeable future. I suspect the same applies to RPGs. An AI written RPG will be nothing but a curiosity.

I know that some artists are more concerned about it, but in its current state I can't see what it offers that public domain art wouldn't do better anyway.
 
AI is like any technology, it replaces the workers at the bottom of the foodchain first and works its way up. And I have no doubt at all that it will get up to professional and academic levels within the foreseeable future (unless the climate crisis gets there first).
 
I find a lot of the art I see, while good, lacks soul. Someone did a lot of AI generated stock art they uploaded to Drivethru, and the ones that are portraits just don't really impress me. Scenery ones look good, but figures and portraits not so much. I'm sure it's going to fix that some day, but I'm still content working with an actual artist
 
I'm not sure that AI is actually replacing many warm bodies in the RPG industry. The vast majority of the industry is small press to single authors, and a lot of those were already using stock photos, no art, or bad art (and not actually buying art). Those that can afford good art are probably going to continue to purchase it because it's still better that even Midjourney. I also know a bunch of artists that have started experimenting with Midjourney stuff as a starting point and then working digitally from there (as a way to churn stuff out more quickly, and also just to experiment). From my perspective, it puts decent looking pictures within my grasp. I have purchased art for projects, but I'd need to making a lot more money to afford purchased art for everything I'm writing. Midjourney simply provides me with a fun way to gin up some not-shit pics for my hobby projects.
 
I'm not sure that AI is actually replacing many warm bodies in the RPG industry. The vast majority of the industry is small press to single authors, and a lot of those were already using stock photos, no art, or bad art (and not actually buying art). Those that can afford good art are probably going to continue to purchase it because it's still better that even Midjourney. I also know a bunch of artists that have started experimenting with Midjourney stuff as a starting point and then working digitally from there (as a way to churn stuff out more quickly, and also just to experiment). From my perspective, it puts decent looking pictures within my grasp. I have purchased art for projects, but I'd need to making a lot more money to afford purchased art for everything I'm writing. Midjourney simply provides me with a fun way to gin up some not-shit pics for my hobby projects.
You bring up an interesting point. It might turn out that this allows an artist to more quickly churn out lower priced stock art.
 
From a copywriter point of view, I am entirely unworried by the possiblity of AI text. It already exists.

It hits people right at the bottom end; the content mills, the "cram 20 SEO keywords into a 200 word article" stuff.

I had a customer send me some marketing bullet points for some of our products that I think were AI-generated. I was like "yeah, these...suck", rewrote them, and sent them back. They agreed that mine were better.

I know algorithmically-generated news articles have been a thing for a while, particularly for anything numbers-heavy (i.e. sports or financial news stories). But like you said, it's really basic content and nothing with any depth or susbtance.
 
...the time of the "newbies guide" has come also for AI art and here we go:

 
A couple of links related to this topic which might be useful to the discussion:


 
I just bought some stuff from shutterstock, there is a lot of AI art there, it is crap. I also have seen it in stuff people are posting on the fb sfrpg group, I wouldn't take it there either. As far as text, I haven't seen anything worth it. So as far as I can see it, it has a ways to go.
 
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