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The Real Challenge Is Teaching AI to Play D&D

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Re: The Real Challenge Is Teaching AI to Play D&D

#51

Post by GuB-42 »

dreen wrote: post #8

Of course the article is actually about writing a digital DM not a player. But isn't the main problem with this defining win conditions? Pretty easy to define win condition for chess or go. Now, I haven't really played DnD (much to my sadness), but how do you win? edit: I know the answer but I'm making a point with my question

I wouldn't call it a win condition but an attention metric would be a good start. You want your players to get engaged, aka. "have fun".

And come to think of it, it is not so different from ads and it is a bit scary. An AI able to provide an exciting game of DnD is going to use a lot of psychological manipulation, which is great when playing a game, much less so if you someone is pushing an agenda.

BTW, I know more about video games than tabletop RPGs but let me tell you that video games manipulate you constantly, for your pleasure. Illusion of choice, random numbers biased in your favor, the last bit of life that is worth a lot more than the rest, enemies you don't see that are slowed down, there are lots and lots of these. And these are just the tricks that make the game more enjoyable, not the dark patterns of games with in-app purchases.

Re: The Real Challenge Is Teaching AI to Play D&D

#52

Post by carapace »

com2kid wrote: post #29
grawprog wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every d&d game i've played tends to end either with the players becoming godlike and destroying the world, more often everybody dying, or everyone getting bored or busy in life and just stopping. >but how do you win? When you've provided a fun and engaging experience for your players? I do mean this seriously. Being a DM is about making sure the players are having fun and always giving players something interesting t…

IMHO one of the hardest parts of DMing is building tension and a sense that there is real danger, without just bringing out enemies that can completely roll over the players. Ideally the group should survive, but constantly feel threatened and like they "just barely" made it through a story's climax. In other words those victories need to be earned, which is a fine balancing act since dice rolls are random and bad th…

I still remember a friend of mine telling me that he had been genuinely scared at one point in an adventure. Like watching-a-horror-movie scared.

(A flying castle attacks the city; it's made to crash; someone has to go in there and find out what's up; cue our heros; they enter through a breach in the wall into a kind of internal moat; it's dark, you're up to your waist in water, and there's something in here with you! (Water Weirds. Damn near invisible snake-like water elementals...) Good times!)

Re: The Real Challenge Is Teaching AI to Play D&D

#53

Post by woah »

ausbah wrote: post #19

I think creating an AI dungeon master has a wide range of difficulty depending on how open ended the game is intended to be. The more structured and rules based the game is, the easier it is to create a dungeon master - the more free form and "on the fly" the game is the harder the task. So while creating a dungeon master may be "easy" if the rules and story are heavily enumerated, it likely won't be very fun as it d…

The main issue with AI Dungeon right now is that it is too free form. The AI is incapable of remembering plot points, and just writes very convincing prose based on the last few paragraphs. This has the result that one can be playing a medieval game and then quickly end up getting on a motorcycle and driving away.

Re: The Real Challenge Is Teaching AI to Play D&D

#55

Post by pugworthy »

dreen wrote: post #8

Of course the article is actually about writing a digital DM not a player. But isn't the main problem with this defining win conditions? Pretty easy to define win condition for chess or go. Now, I haven't really played DnD (much to my sadness), but how do you win? edit: I know the answer but I'm making a point with my question

> writing a digital DM

Turing's DM as it were

Re: The Real Challenge Is Teaching AI to Play D&D

#56

Post by v01dlight »

v01dlight wrote: post #46

A huge part of the charm of TTRPGs is playing a non-digital game face to face with other humans. Even if we had AI that was as entertaining as a skilled human DM (unlikely to be possible IMHO), the human might end up being preferable since hanging out with humans is one of the goals of this particular pursuit. Plus, we already have (weak) AI DMs. They're called video game RPGs. You're the player (as are many others i…

There's no end of people making video games that are direct attempts to convert D&D to a digital format. Take the new Baldur's Gate for example[0]. All the same spells present, digital dice rolling, etc.

Personally, I say let things fall to the medium that best suits them. If D&D is sufficiently complicated rules wise that it is actually more fun to have software take care of that so you can just focus on the tactical combat and scripted story choices, then the video game is probably your best bet! There are many other TTRPGs where this is not the case, and where any digitization would take away much more than it would add. Such RPGs are elegant enough rules wise that they do not slow down play at the table, and you can spend 99% of your time just relishing each other's madcap plans and imaginative descriptions of things.

[0] https://www.polygon.com/2020/2/27/21156082/baldurs-gate-3-di...

Re: The Real Challenge Is Teaching AI to Play D&D

#58

Post by ska »

b3kart wrote: post #25

> Forget X, the real challenge for AI is Y. As soon as Ys become Xs over time, and we come up with new Ys: we’re making progress.

You forget the step where when we get comfortable enough with something we stop calling X AI at all because obviously it' just Z.

NB: I'm not convinced this is the wrong thing to do, many of the things we've historically labeled "AI" are very obviously not, at least in retrospect.

Perhaps the cycle ends only when an AI can explain to us how we are getting it wrong.

Re: The Real Challenge Is Teaching AI to Play D&D

#59

Post by grawprog »

com2kid wrote: post #29
grawprog wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every d&d game i've played tends to end either with the players becoming godlike and destroying the world, more often everybody dying, or everyone getting bored or busy in life and just stopping. >but how do you win? When you've provided a fun and engaging experience for your players? I do mean this seriously. Being a DM is about making sure the players are having fun and always giving players something interesting t…

IMHO one of the hardest parts of DMing is building tension and a sense that there is real danger, without just bringing out enemies that can completely roll over the players. Ideally the group should survive, but constantly feel threatened and like they "just barely" made it through a story's climax. In other words those victories need to be earned, which is a fine balancing act since dice rolls are random and bad th…

I'll usually fudge at least a few dice rolls as a DM depending on how the game or encounter's going as the situation requires. If I roll a bunch of crits in a row for example, i'll maybe just call it one instead a bunch, maybe that wasn't a one hit kill when it should have been, stuff like that. If it's too random it usually stops being fun for everyone. It's a really hard balance though you don't want the players to be frustrated, but you don't want them to feel like their cheesing through the game.

For dungeons at least i try to go for that nethack or metroidvania vibe of slowly going deeper while your supplies and health dwindle, so each encounter needs to be considered more as they get deeper.

Above world adventures I try and let them be more free in their decisions but keep the consequences a bit higher for things.

I've yet to play any computer or console rpgs that really come close to the feeling of playing a good d&d game, even the ones that heavily use the rules. Nwn online came close, but those typically had human DMS the single player game was fun, but even on coop, still wasn't really like playing dnd without a DM player.

Re: The Real Challenge Is Teaching AI to Play D&D

#60

Post by redisman »

woah wrote: post #53
ausbah wrote: post #19

I think creating an AI dungeon master has a wide range of difficulty depending on how open ended the game is intended to be. The more structured and rules based the game is, the easier it is to create a dungeon master - the more free form and "on the fly" the game is the harder the task. So while creating a dungeon master may be "easy" if the rules and story are heavily enumerated, it likely won't be very fun as it d…

The main issue with AI Dungeon right now is that it is too free form. The AI is incapable of remembering plot points, and just writes very convincing prose based on the last few paragraphs. This has the result that one can be playing a medieval game and then quickly end up getting on a motorcycle and driving away.

That seems easy to fix by setting a few ground rules on the scenario like a human DM does. The world is possible_worlds[6] then you only search in that space or replace the nouns or whatever.
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