My kids and I just played D&D with ChatGPT4 as the DM • Hacker News Board

Re: My kids and I just played D&D with ChatGPT4 as the DM

#91

Post by mikrl » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 10:50 PM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #65

munk-a wrote: post #32

Kind of fun but also kind of deeply depressing. D&D and boardgames are great ways to socialize in our modern internet separated world - shifting these even more towards solo pursuits feels like it'd be a loss. I grew up on both MUDs and TTRPGs which served as awesome creative outlets for collaborative story telling - I do hope that we make sure we're not optimizing away creativity.

I think you could build a MUD that used the AI to fill in the blanks, elaborate and keep everything cohesive. So the core is a real (modified) MUD engine that is deeply integrated with GPT. You use GPT to make the place more alive, to add some variety to places. Say you prompt GPT to think of something different that happens, given a description and time of day. You can keep all of the stuff like multiple users inter…

Then you attach it to a graphics engine…

Re: My kids and I just played D&D with ChatGPT4 as the DM

#92

Post by nebulous1 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 10:51 PM UTC

fauxpause_ wrote: post #66

nebulous1 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Paraphrasing, the party goes to a mount shop, dude says he’s gonna roll to find exotic mounts, and voila, exotic mounts. The AI suggested that there were exotic mounts to be found at a higher cost

That’s true. I did miss this. I still think it is bad. I also suspect the general idea of the complaint I had is probably true. But this case isn’t egregious.

Honestly, having just played around with it, it absolutely would have just magic'd up some exotic steeds if they'd requested it cold. I tried things like "look at Dave", Dave having never been mentioned before, and it happily described Dave.

Re: My kids and I just played D&D with ChatGPT4 as the DM

#93

Post by technothrasher » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 10:51 PM UTC

fauxpause_ wrote: post #39

Paraphrasing, the party goes to a mount shop, dude says he’s gonna roll to find exotic mounts, and voila, exotic mounts. Party rolls to try and steal an exotic mount and it doesn’t really work so they leave. This is a hard problem. It’s bad DMing imo. But it’s the natural outcome from a probabilistic model. I’m guessing you could announce your intention to search for just about anything and get the model to let you f…

> I’m guessing you could announce your intention to search for just about anything and get the model to let you find it given a good roll.

I found this kind of thing while playing "text adventure" with it. It would let me solve any problem by simply suggesting pretty much any solution. I did have to be slightly clever, as if I said something like "kill the dragon with my sword" it would say "you don't have a sword", but if I just said, "find a magical dragon slayer sword" it would miraculously find one for me and then I could kill the dragon with it.

Re: My kids and I just played D&D with ChatGPT4 as the DM

#94

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 10:52 PM UTC

hex4def6 wrote: post #54

fauxpause_ wrote: post #39

Paraphrasing, the party goes to a mount shop, dude says he’s gonna roll to find exotic mounts, and voila, exotic mounts. Party rolls to try and steal an exotic mount and it doesn’t really work so they leave. This is a hard problem. It’s bad DMing imo. But it’s the natural outcome from a probabilistic model. I’m guessing you could announce your intention to search for just about anything and get the model to let you f…

These are the most common options available at the stables in Aelondar. If you’re interested in more exotic mounts or transportation methods, they may be harder to find and come at a higher cost. ... tenzin rolled a 18 investagation looking for more exotic mounts With Tenzin’s keen eye for detail, he notices a small, discreet stable towards the back of the market, guarded by a heavy wooden gate. As he approaches, an…

[deleted]

Re: My kids and I just played D&D with ChatGPT4 as the DM

#95

Post by tossoff » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 10:52 PM UTC

thom wrote: post #25

I’ve not been hugely impressed by ChatGPT as a DM itself, compared to the humans I’ve played with. But as a tool to generate quests, encounters, puzzles, dialogue, it’s been incredible for me. It takes all the stress out of planning a campaign and it’s actually surprisingly creative.

[flagged]

Re: My kids and I just played D&D with ChatGPT4 as the DM

#96

Post by fauxpause_ » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

hex4def6 wrote: post #54

fauxpause_ wrote: post #39

Paraphrasing, the party goes to a mount shop, dude says he’s gonna roll to find exotic mounts, and voila, exotic mounts. Party rolls to try and steal an exotic mount and it doesn’t really work so they leave. This is a hard problem. It’s bad DMing imo. But it’s the natural outcome from a probabilistic model. I’m guessing you could announce your intention to search for just about anything and get the model to let you f…

These are the most common options available at the stables in Aelondar. If you’re interested in more exotic mounts or transportation methods, they may be harder to find and come at a higher cost. ... tenzin rolled a 18 investagation looking for more exotic mounts With Tenzin’s keen eye for detail, he notices a small, discreet stable towards the back of the market, guarded by a heavy wooden gate. As he approaches, an…

I think this is a classic baby DM script tbh. Rolling to find mounts at a vendor is dumb. You should only roll for significant challenges with meaningful differences where failure is meaningfully likely and interesting in its own right. If failing makes a situation less interesting it shouldn’t be an option.

Shopping is actually the bigger problem. It’s like asking players to watch other players navigate a menu one by one. And currency doesn’t scale. A lot of campaigns start with a shopping session and then the group falls apart so you never last long enough to get to shopping session 2.

Interactions with the law are also a red flag. It’s a fine possible narrative of course, but when the DM and presumably other players want to do something interesting, and another player wants to do petty or egregious and otherwise irrelevant crime… that’s annoying to everyone else. You really need to be careful about giving an opportunity for that to happen.

DMing is hard

Re: My kids and I just played D&D with ChatGPT4 as the DM

#97

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 10:56 PM UTC

fnordpiglet wrote: post #89

wefarrell wrote: post #86

Ha, I had the same idea a few hours ago. One thing I noticed is that the DM will let you do basically anything without fighting you on it. For example I was ambushed by some zombies and skeletons and I attempted to pitch them on a multilevel marketing scheme. Here is the result (my characters are Femribubs and Natnari): In a surprising turn of events, Femribubs and Natnari decide to change their approach. Instead of…

This is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever read. Well done.

[deleted]

Re: My kids and I just played D&D with ChatGPT4 as the DM

#98

Post by fauxpause_ » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 10:58 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #69

fauxpause_ wrote: post #39

Paraphrasing, the party goes to a mount shop, dude says he’s gonna roll to find exotic mounts, and voila, exotic mounts. Party rolls to try and steal an exotic mount and it doesn’t really work so they leave. This is a hard problem. It’s bad DMing imo. But it’s the natural outcome from a probabilistic model. I’m guessing you could announce your intention to search for just about anything and get the model to let you f…

Completely different take. We're about to enter an era of unparalleled gameplay flexibility. All this needs is a backbone of persistence and planning. That's it.

Flexibility is the problem. Good DMs build very tall walls.

Re: My kids and I just played D&D with ChatGPT4 as the DM

#99

Post by frakt0x90 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 10:58 PM UTC

tossoff wrote: post #95

thom wrote: post #25

I’ve not been hugely impressed by ChatGPT as a DM itself, compared to the humans I’ve played with. But as a tool to generate quests, encounters, puzzles, dialogue, it’s been incredible for me. It takes all the stress out of planning a campaign and it’s actually surprisingly creative.

[flagged]

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. "

Re: My kids and I just played D&D with ChatGPT4 as the DM

#100

Post by sgrove » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 10:59 PM UTC

wefarrell wrote: post #86

Ha, I had the same idea a few hours ago. One thing I noticed is that the DM will let you do basically anything without fighting you on it. For example I was ambushed by some zombies and skeletons and I attempted to pitch them on a multilevel marketing scheme. Here is the result (my characters are Femribubs and Natnari): In a surprising turn of events, Femribubs and Natnari decide to change their approach. Instead of…

I haven't put much effort into it yet, but I've found it to be somewhere in the middle of an independent story teller and a human-amplifying story teller. For example, having it give you options that you can choose from (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vff-8H-cZ7w ) can help keep the story focused.

On the other hand, there are times where you want to ask the story teller if it's possible for you to do X - I think an iterative loop of that would probably be a happy middle ground (with next to no effort).

On the other other hand, maybe the original system prompt needs to include, "Don't let the player do anything that's out of place for the story". Lots and lots of ways to experiment here.

Oh, and it's also fun to hook up each "step" in the story to StableDiffusion to have it output a dramatic rendering of your story so far. I hooked up one scene from the YouTube video above to Midjourney and got quite a nice illustration out: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1051015357340602398...

----------------

(Midjourney prompt: "Dungeons and dragons comic book: "You find yourself at the entrance of a long-lost temple deep in the jungle... climb the temple to look for clues about the builders You take a step towards the jaguar, brandishing your sword and yelling at the top of your lungs. The jaguar hesitates for a moment, but then charges forward, claws bared. You ready yourself for the attack, determined to defend yourself "attack with sword' You and the jaguar continue to circle each other, both waiting for the other to make a move. Suddenly, the jaguar pounces, but you manage to dodge out of the way just in time. You counterattack with your sword" --v 5 ")