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

dicebreaker.com

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

#71

Post by BerislavLopac »

sklargh wrote: post #33
mhitza wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to share the same One page dungeon generator, direct link https://watabou.itch.io/one-page-dungeon

These tools are invaluable. Combined with Azgar’s world making tools and DonJon’s demographics generator (see link) a dm/ref can generate an entire environment with fairly detailed religious, political and economic data in an hour. https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/demographics/ https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/

The Fantasy Map Generator already integrates with the City Generator - if you zoom in on the former and click on a city, it will be generated in the latter.

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

#72

Post by pessimizer »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #41
Jensson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You don't need it to be fair, you need it to be fun. Most video games play with randomness so that the distribution serves the gameplay, sometimes bypassing completely the RNG to balance frustration/satisfaction. GPT can learn do to that: not providing true randomness, but the illusion of it to serve the game.

Players will detect drama being injected into their randomness (unless it is very gently and rarely done), and over time they will start to be able to predict dice rolls [edit: or even learn to shape their responses to trick the model into generating the rolls they want.] That will ruin the game.

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

#73

Post by Zetice »

thesuitonym wrote: post #68
Someone wrote: post #63

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.

Nobody writes about a perfectly average dnd session, so its training data probably has less than usual “average” rolls, which might result in it not understanding that dnd can be average sometimes.

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

#74

Post by bluefirebrand »

dagw wrote: post #64
meh8881 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

My feeling is that all this varies far more between groups and possibly even geographic regions that anything else. My memory of the late 90s/early 2000s was that storytelling was the focus, dice where used sparingly and that the "rule of cool" was the only rule that mattered. All much more so than what I see today. I've however also spoken to other people, living in different places, and they remember the same time…

I have been seeing the opposite myself.

In the 90s and 00s it was almost always about the minis and tactical gameplay. DnD 3.5 was a lot more numbers heavy so it kept a lot of the story people out of the game.

Now DnD 5 the numbers have such a gentle, predictable curve with bounded accuracy and damage and stuff, you may as well ignore them because there's nothing exciting about rolling the dice anymore.

So the story is a lot heavier focus, the character journey. I never used to encounter people who got upset if their character died or groups who had the mentality that characters must always fail forward for the sake of the story.

That stuff is everywhere now.

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

#75

Post by dagw »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #74
dagw wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My feeling is that all this varies far more between groups and possibly even geographic regions that anything else. My memory of the late 90s/early 2000s was that storytelling was the focus, dice where used sparingly and that the "rule of cool" was the only rule that mattered. All much more so than what I see today. I've however also spoken to other people, living in different places, and they remember the same time…

I have been seeing the opposite myself. In the 90s and 00s it was almost always about the minis and tactical gameplay. DnD 3.5 was a lot more numbers heavy so it kept a lot of the story people out of the game. Now DnD 5 the numbers have such a gentle, predictable curve with bounded accuracy and damage and stuff, you may as well ignore them because there's nothing exciting about rolling the dice anymore. So the story…

Another aspect I just thought about was that in 90s and 00s there was a lot more diversity of games that were popular. Most people I knew played at least 2 or 3 different games with very different styles and I knew lots of people who never played DnD. Now everybody I talk to seems to play DnD only.

Just the fact that the tile is "D&D map makers..." instead of "RPG map makers..." is very telling.

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

#77

Post by carapace »

elevaet wrote: post #55
zug_zug wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely did for me, but I also wonder if I learned the limitations/weaknesses of the AI too much that it would break the immersion.

It's dizzying to think about how immersive these things will become after the next however-many iterations that are foreseeable.

When they understand and can manipulate psychological "archetypes" (or whatever they find in the structure of our minds) and we let them make our kids' cartoons and games...

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

#78

Post by garblegarble »

Someone wrote: post #63
zug_zug wrote: post #45

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…

>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?

Game AI (single player in particular) is all about providing the player with openings and ways to win and feel powerful without them realising that's what is happening... all the way from NPCs coordinating with one another (and barks to make it clear what they are planning so they can be ambushed or stopped), to "Director AIs" that work on rules of tension and release to make sure the player's having the most fun and not being overloaded.

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

#79

Post by BiteCode_dev »

pessimizer wrote: post #72
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need it to be fair, you need it to be fun. Most video games play with randomness so that the distribution serves the gameplay, sometimes bypassing completely the RNG to balance frustration/satisfaction. GPT can learn do to that: not providing true randomness, but the illusion of it to serve the game.

Players will detect drama being injected into their randomness (unless it is very gently and rarely done), and over time they will start to be able to predict dice rolls [edit: or even learn to shape their responses to trick the model into generating the rolls they want.] That will ruin the game.

Xcom 2 make hits more likely the more you miss because fair proba was frustrating the players when they missed a shot with 95% of success.

So I'm not sure you are right.

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

#80

Post by geph2021 »

sirtaj wrote: post #15
david2ndaccount wrote: post #11

I personally recommend going old school and drawing your dungeon out on graph paper. Additionally, don’t plop the map down in front of your players. Instead describe where they are as they explore the map and have them draw the map themselves based on your descriptions. In my experience this leads to much more engaged players and also opens interesting gameplay.

I've been using Dungeon Revealer [1] a self-hosted web app. It's a simple halfway point between a fancy VTT and a paper map. It's easy to use and allows you to upload any kind of image, which makes it a rudimentary presentation tool too. 1. https://github.com/dungeon-revealer/dungeon-revealer

Cool, I'll be sure to check that out, thanks for sharing. Seems similar to Owl Bear Rodeo.

https://www.owlbear.rodeo/

Very simple, easy to use, and can play online.

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