61–70 of 106 posts
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…
But can GPT-4 suggest tunes for Nero to play while Rome burns?
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/
I wish they had a system where the DM could buy up to N seats and a free "player only" client for connecting in. Requiring the players to make that kind of upfront investment can put people off from engaging at all.
You do have to self host (LAN is easy of course) or pay a hosting partner a monthly fee on top of the license cost.
We've done a bit of experimenting with Tailscale sharing and seemed to work okay (but does require a bit of technical skill). Tailscale funnels would probably also work and be easier for players. ngrok would be an option as well or a vps.
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…
Played a solo-campgain with GPT4 for 1-2 hours yesterday, summary: - Created character sheet for me, at desired level with spells and abilities - Was able to add a cat to the game upon request - Took hints. - Was an outstanding writer, far better than any DM in terms of sensory descriptions and articulation - Had to ask it to only tell 5 paragraphs at a time - Performed combat rolls and math, all apparently correctly…
This is a case where Asimov’s laws of robotics would have to be bent a bit. If you ask an AI to let you win a single-player game, should it comply, or argue that letting you win will harm you?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My initial impressions are that GPT-4 is nearly as competent as a human DM I wonder what kind of campaigns we're talking about here. I mean, if it's just mindless modern encounter-based design, sure, I can believe that. Kicking down doors, rolling for initiative, GOTO 10. But even mildly more moderate DM work like re-jiggering set up monsters to react to the actions of the players (in e.g. a Caves of Chaos type of…
What does mindless modern encounter mean? My sense was that modern players are more plot and narrative focus whereas old school players were down to stuff like roll for a random encounter while traveling and actually play out a fight with… Wolves! That didn’t matter at all to the plot. It was just what you did. Edit: but I could be wildly off here?
I've however also spoken to other people, living in different places, and they remember the same time period being all about rules lawyering and "war gaming".
I've also observed a Europe/US divide where the US tends more heavily towards "war gaming" focused role playing with physical maps and moving miniatures around on a table, while Europe tends towards more story focused role playing. But I could be imagining that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My initial impressions are that GPT-4 is nearly as competent as a human DM I wonder what kind of campaigns we're talking about here. I mean, if it's just mindless modern encounter-based design, sure, I can believe that. Kicking down doors, rolling for initiative, GOTO 10. But even mildly more moderate DM work like re-jiggering set up monsters to react to the actions of the players (in e.g. a Caves of Chaos type of…
What does mindless modern encounter mean? My sense was that modern players are more plot and narrative focus whereas old school players were down to stuff like roll for a random encounter while traveling and actually play out a fight with… Wolves! That didn’t matter at all to the plot. It was just what you did. Edit: but I could be wildly off here?
Here, at least since mid to late 3rd edition, we got a very strong focus on combat "encounters", where you got pre-packaged situations where combat would arise. A combination of monsters, location and possibly events happening during that time. Monsters might even be built for this specific situation, even though their names are generic enough (i.e. a "Orc Battlescout").
Your dungeon FSM gets to a certain state and this encounter gets triggered.
Whereas the canonic ideal of older games was a more fluid setup. Often described as "Combat as War" vs. today's "Combat as Sport". Sure, played very simply, you got an even less sophisticated environment: Room #13 has 4 orcs, guarding a chest, which has 380 copper coins. Kick down door, fight orcs, spend coins on torches for next dungeon. But no experienced DM sees a dungeon that way. Because next to that, you got room #14, where the orc chieftain is preparing the prized pigs they stole from the goblins in room #27, which are currently sneaking up to get it back. Then, as you say, you might have your random encounter, so while the players are heading for the orc room, wolves attack (the goblins aren't guarding the wolf-forest-gates, the DM muses). The fight makes a lot of noise. The orcs look. The orc chieftain looks. The goblins use that distraction. The characters might notice that or not, etc.
Even rather simple setups can achieve rather complicated results, if you're not emulating a 12 year old mastering their first adventure where they just picked monsters from the tables in their Dungeon Masters Guide that are appropriate for a level 2 party of characters.
That's a bare minimum where I'd consider a "AI" DM-like, otherwise you mostly got a NLP interface on gameplay that I could've had with the old SSI Gold Box games on an C64.
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…
I spent some weeks trying to make a GPT-3 D&D GM, but indeed it just won't work. I haven't tried GPT-4 yet but this post makes me want to test it for sure. The problem I had with GPT-3, most of all, was that it tries to "finish the story". E.g. if the players are on a grand campaign to defeat some big bad boss, then this might happen: GM (GPT): You enter the tavern, and you see a halfling bartender and a few gnome pa…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Played a solo-campgain with GPT4 for 1-2 hours yesterday, summary: - Created character sheet for me, at desired level with spells and abilities - Was able to add a cat to the game upon request - Took hints. - Was an outstanding writer, far better than any DM in terms of sensory descriptions and articulation - Had to ask it to only tell 5 paragraphs at a time - Performed combat rolls and math, all apparently correctly…
Also, “asked it give more random rolls and it seemingly did for a while” seems a problem area to me, not as much for that “for a while” as for the fact that it complied. What happens when you ask it to give you more favorable rolls or to let you kill a monster with your bare hands? This is a case where Asimov’s laws of robotics would have to be bent a bit. If you ask an AI to let you win a single-player game, should…
GameScape (https://gamescape.app)
Basically I wanted something to approximate pen, grid paper and physical tokens during the pandemic when I was playing with some old high school friends remotely. Roll20 was just too clunky.
I’ve got a new startup now (unrelated) so I haven’t had much time to work on it. If anyone wants to work on TTRPG tools (I’ve considered OSS this, or maybe even paying for dev) let me know!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, “asked it give more random rolls and it seemingly did for a while” seems a problem area to me, not as much for that “for a while” as for the fact that it complied. What happens when you ask it to give you more favorable rolls or to let you kill a monster with your bare hands? This is a case where Asimov’s laws of robotics would have to be bent a bit. If you ask an AI to let you win a single-player game, should…
Human DMs will frequently respond to a player's mood, and will fudge rolls to be more (or less) favorable to the player if they feel that players aren't having fun. The only real difference here is that GPT couldn't respond to the mood, and had to be told to fudge the rolls.