Best D&D map makers for dungeons, cities and worlds • Hacker News Board

Re: Best D&D map makers for dungeons, cities and worlds

#21

Post by A_D_E_P_T » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 9:03 AM UTC

Okay, this is probably the right place to say this: You can't play D&D with GPT-3/3.5, but you absolutely can with GPT-4. GPT-4 is a solid DM.

GPT-3 couldn't remember what it said 30 minutes ago, and was basically incapable of planning, so unless you want a simple dungeon rougelike-esque adventure, it'll lose track of things and start hallucinating. It will also sometimes forget the rules.

My initial impressions are that GPT-4 is nearly as competent as a human DM, and much faster and more flexible. Also, unlike GPT-3, it will roll dice for you, and it knows the rules just as well as most players.

These maps + GPT-4 could = infinite campaigns.

Perhaps it's just a matter of time -- and just a few years, at that -- before generative text and graphic AIs merge, and games like Baldur's Gate can quite literally be made on the fly.

Re: Best D&D map makers for dungeons, cities and worlds

#22

Post by stavros » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 9:26 AM UTC

xnorswap wrote: post #19

I've recently started DMing, and my biggest surprise when I looked into this is just how poor the general tooling was when I looked for it. I found the user experience of Roll 20 horrible. I fumbled my way around the interface, eventually sort-of getting some maps going but the scene "transitions" were me just deleting the previous tiles because I couldn't work out how to set out proper scenes. A lot of the other too…

Our group uses TaleSpire and the DMs have mostly been happy with it.

Re: Best D&D map makers for dungeons, cities and worlds

#23

Post by ajacksified » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 9:37 AM UTC

wincy wrote: post #2

It’s been fun playing with an online DM that has been stretching and upping his game. When he pulled out Dungeon Alchemist especially we were super impressed. I’ve stopped playing video games for the most part as the impact and sense of wonder just isn’t there for me the same way it is when I play D&D with my online compatriots. We’re even meeting up later this year! It’s been a fantastic experience. On the topic of…

Do you have a link to any of these models? I was just wondering if any existed a few days ago.

Re: Best D&D map makers for dungeons, cities and worlds

#24

Post by Jensson » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 9:41 AM UTC

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #21

Okay, this is probably the right place to say this: You can't play D&D with GPT-3/3.5, but you absolutely can with GPT-4. GPT-4 is a solid DM. GPT-3 couldn't remember what it said 30 minutes ago, and was basically incapable of planning, so unless you want a simple dungeon rougelike-esque adventure, it'll lose track of things and start hallucinating. It will also sometimes forget the rules. My initial impressions are…

> Also, unlike GPT-3, it will roll dice for you

I'd question the fairness of those rolls.

But yeah, DMing seems like an excellent fit for these models. But you probably need to track hitpoints and stats separately, GPT-4 can't do math either. Or I guess it not doing math might be a feature, that way it will tell you what reasonably happens with fuzzy logic, might be a more immersive experience.

Re: Best D&D map makers for dungeons, cities and worlds

#25

Post by MEMORYC_RRUPTED » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 9:51 AM UTC

Another recommendation for Dungeon Alchemist, simply because it saves me time. I love drawing intricate maps, but I just don't have the time for it any more (though DA definitely allows you to still do that, just not what I use it for). It doesn't help that I'm a bit of a perfectionist and even quickly hand drawing maps is somewhat frustrating to me. DA can spit out nice looking maps quickly enough that I've even used it on the fly if my group went in a completely different direction than I expected them to go.

Re: Best D&D map makers for dungeons, cities and worlds

#26

Post by mwilliamson » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 9:52 AM UTC

I GM an online TTRPG, and I wanted to replicate the experience of the players drawing the map themselves as they go along. We use Roll20, but didn't find the tools particularly well suited to updating the map in the moment.

So, I had a go at making a little tool that lets you quickly make rough sketches of the map, as well letting you move tokens (for the characters) around. It's not particularly fancy, but it seems to work for us!

https://github.com/mwilliamson/ttrpg-map-sketcher

Re: Best D&D map makers for dungeons, cities and worlds

#27

Post by intelVISA » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 10:10 AM UTC

hresvelgr wrote: post #13

I feel that list articles don't meet the standard for a good HN submission. In the interest of discussing tabletop map tools, one that isn't mentioned which is frankly amazing is: TaleSpire[1]. The quality of their asset packs for building maps is fantastic and you can actually play with friends using it. [1] https://talespire.com/

Does it have automation or is it more of a model viewer? Looks like the devs clocked out after hitting EA.

Re: Best D&D map makers for dungeons, cities and worlds

#28

Post by jagermo » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 10:11 AM UTC

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #21

Okay, this is probably the right place to say this: You can't play D&D with GPT-3/3.5, but you absolutely can with GPT-4. GPT-4 is a solid DM. GPT-3 couldn't remember what it said 30 minutes ago, and was basically incapable of planning, so unless you want a simple dungeon rougelike-esque adventure, it'll lose track of things and start hallucinating. It will also sometimes forget the rules. My initial impressions are…

It is also fantastic to create on the fly scores for Blades in the Dark, surprisingly detailed and able to flesh them out.

Runs for Shadowrun are also possible, really nice. Great for systems where you don't have a lot of published adventures.

Re: Best D&D map makers for dungeons, cities and worlds

#29

Post by globalnode » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 10:19 AM UTC

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #21

Okay, this is probably the right place to say this: You can't play D&D with GPT-3/3.5, but you absolutely can with GPT-4. GPT-4 is a solid DM. GPT-3 couldn't remember what it said 30 minutes ago, and was basically incapable of planning, so unless you want a simple dungeon rougelike-esque adventure, it'll lose track of things and start hallucinating. It will also sometimes forget the rules. My initial impressions are…

This has to be the most inspiring comment on HN ive ever seen. I must live to see this.

Re: Best D&D map makers for dungeons, cities and worlds

#30

Post by ipsi » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 10:23 AM UTC

xnorswap wrote: post #19

I've recently started DMing, and my biggest surprise when I looked into this is just how poor the general tooling was when I looked for it. I found the user experience of Roll 20 horrible. I fumbled my way around the interface, eventually sort-of getting some maps going but the scene "transitions" were me just deleting the previous tiles because I couldn't work out how to set out proper scenes. A lot of the other too…

I think a lot of HN readers would find Foundry VTT to be a good choice - one-off fee, self-hostable, very, very extensible.

I think it's worth pointing out that VTTs (Foundry, Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, etc) don't tend to be good at actual map-making, since the program design and the target users are pretty different, and you're better off with other tools for that. Some of them export into a format that's easily importable into your VTT of choice, complete with walls and such, which helps getting started.