#ai gaming tools

[solo-rpg-rambling]

Solo + LLM, some ideas

Throwing together some thoughts on playing solo TTRPGs with help from LLMs (Large Language Models, "AI", GPT, etc.). I'll throw up a cut so people who hate the idea can click and move on. Mostly I've been using LLMs as a way to expand or contextualize oracles, tables of words or phrases that are used to inspire what comes next.

Lesson 0: If the Answer is Obvious, Don't Use an Oracle (or Mechanic)

I'm sure many people have done this at least once, tried something impossible in a game hoping for an "automatic success" (natural 20 in D&D terms). At the other end of the spectrum, there are playstyles where you roll (or ask to roll) for trivial tasks and observations.

Oracles are useful for those moments when you don't know what happens next. Your characters (and you) are bored with travel scenes, so you need something to spice things up. But your brain is just churning on a lot of nothing.

Lesson 1: The LLM is a Bad GM

LLMs (at least as of 2024) are bad at synthesis, facts, math, and long-form storytelling. They are ok at making surface-level connections, suggestions, and "what happens next" (within the limits of what something trained on wikipedia, twitter, and reddit can do.)

Lesson 2: Provide Context

GPT is a "conversational" LLM. It can (within limits) remember earlier parts of the conversation. Give it one paragraph of the story so far. Describe genre and setting.

Lesson 3: Brainstorm

"Give me five ideas for..." Asking for one answer will likely get you something that doesn't quite work. Instead, ask for five suggestions and pick the one you like best.

Lesson 4: Critique, Argue, Rewrite

IMNSHO the real challenge of writing or GMing isn't ideas it's development. Treat LLM suggestions as thumbnail sketches or scribbling on a whiteboard. Take the most interesting idea, and argue with it. Keep what works, critique or rewrite what doesn't. Arguing with a bad idea helps clarify what you want from the scene.

Unleash your internal editor on those ideas.

Lesson 5: If it's not Fun, Do Something Else

I enjoy bouncing ideas off of a group or LLM. Other people use notebooks or rubber ducks. If it's not fun, and not moving your game forward, try something else.

[turbotheduck]

almost definitely never going to clean this up so here is bro getting too attached (they are both bro)

[satanfemme]

just saw a post which was very insistent in an authoritative way that interacting with AI-assisted art in any context even just to mentally find meaning in it before moving on, or even (especially!) if you don't actually realize that it's AI-assisted before interacting, is a moral failing on ur part. and so according to op the only morally correct thing to do from now on for the rest of ur life is to thoroughly research every piece of art you come across, and to thoroughly research the artist of any piece of art you come across, and to - prior to appreciating any art - ensure just in case through thorough research that no AI was used at any point in the process at all, or else it's morally tainted the art forever. and how if you don't do this you, personally, will be partially responsible for the impeding death of art itself. RIP art. born: the dawn of human kind, probably sooner. died: now I guess, because You specifically forgot to ruminate compulsions ruminate compulsions moral purity rumination over it prior to daring to resonate with something someone spent the time and effort to make. aren't you tired. aren't you literally tired.

[ladyyomiart]

Bringing more old Hakuouki art! ⚔️🌸 I drew this quick portrait of Heisuke wearing his kendo uniform in 2018 and I still think it's one of my best drawings of him, haha. 💖

[isat-script-project]

Your amazing work here has inspired me to want to try doing a script project for DQB2 and I was wondering if you had any advice for me?

I'm gonna assume that's some sorta dragon quest game?

Well, ISAT really is a blessing in this regard, because the game is not encrypted at all. Accessing files and all text via rpgmaker MV and VSC is incredibly easy.

okay this got really long i'm putting it under the cut.

But before you get started, there really are some things you need to ask yourself first:

How am I going to get the text from this game?

If your answer is "write it down by hand as I play" then already know that there HAS to be a better way. If you're choosing that method, get yourself emulation, save states, or endless patience, because hooh boy, I've done a little bit of that for a different project (no, I will not elaborate) but save scumming on original hardware to get different dialogue options is agony.

Is there a text dump for your game? Is there a file dump or decomp for your game? Do you have the technical know how to access it? If not, are you confident in your knowledge of the game to accurately identify where all dialogue may occur? If not, are you satisfied missing out on nothing lines and just focusing on the non-optional? Is your game linear enough to not need a closer look at the code to figure out what happens when, as isat does?

2. What's my scope?

Again, do you truly want every line from this game, or just what's "important"? I personally cannot rest until I've exhausted the fucking Menus (which is why there's a script page for those, too) because I'm a completionist with delusions of grandeur, but some people are satisfied transcribing the cutscenes and nothing else (MUCH TO MY ANNOYANCE WHEN I NEED THE OTHER STUFF.... nobody cares about the optional collectible npc dialogue BUT I CARE!!! I CARE!!!!!)

Anyways, what exactly your scope is is gonna significantly influence what your next step looks like.

3. How am I going to present this?

Making the isat script project an individual website mainly came down to how finicky the dialogue in isat is. There's conditionals stacked on conditionals and I wanted a space where I had total control over how to present these factors without influence.

For more linear games, like, say, that time I made all the fewiki scripts for Fire Emblem 6 from chapter 12 onward, it was easy enough to present the scripts on a wiki page just because the game is much more linear, there's less dialogue to begin with, and all conditional text could be nicely divided up into similar groups, like boss dialogue where the condition is just "fight boss with x character".

isat script project would not exist without my fire emblem fixation, fun fact. other fun facts include that as a child i attempted to novelize Mario Party DS by transcribing all story mode text into a booklet by hand, and I did not finish this for reasons that are hopefully obvious.

This is, as you may figure, way easier to do. There is significantly less burden on you to actually understand how a website works - I cannot stress enough that the current state of the script project is only possible thanks to Gold, and without them, we'd still be at all dialogue being formatted as <p><b>Siffrin:</b> Says some text.</p>

For a lot of older games, you can also find whole game scripts being put up into a single document. Tis common on gamefaqs, I've used those plenty. There I believe you're just working with plain ol txt.

The rule is always though look at examples and if they do something cool figure out whether you can copy it. i did not create the website layout myself, i used a base and fiddled with it for a whole weekend until it stopped exploding.

Again, like, using an existing structure like a wiki or gamefaqs or just google docs or a spreadsheet is a significantly eased burden. One of my favorite things ever is actually a text dump on github, of all places. For this one, the person putting it up chose to leave all text in as close to original state as possible, doing no trimming of things like character emotes and leaving in all original string titles of every line. This is also incredibly useful, even if it is more difficult to use for your average schmoe! (This has fucking saved me doing wiki stuff for engage. engage text dump i ADORE you)

Do you want to be as accurate to the code as possible, or as accurate to the game? Do you have the time, energy, and skills to make the visual presentation nice? Or do you want to keep it rudimentary to streamline your process?

If you ARE doing something like making your own website, it is crucial that you figure out your visuals early, lest you be like us, and be stuck in Reformatting Hell for several months, because someone figured out how to make a thing prettier and nicer to read, and now you need to update the 100+ pages you've already created.

Reformatting code like that takes just as long as making a page in the first place, by the by, because you're just not getting around copy-pasting everything line by agonizing line.

This stuff takes HOURS. If I went at it alone, I doubt I'd have finished by now, or within the next like, two years. This is a really time consuming hobby, and I love doing it a lot, it scratches my exact fixation itch, but if your game is huge, consider seeing if people would be interested in joining you? I will also say being autistic about your game of choice is also a bonus in the sustainability department.

Many a times there were just no updates (as they are now) cuz I am just. Distracted by something else. Like yes on one hand I'm going to uni now and have less time but it's not really less time if I can still put 17hrs into a new video game in three days.

Stuff like this is ALWAYS a long-term project and you WILL need to take time off from it or else you'll start seeing html in your dreams and get burnout.

STREAMLINE YOUR PROCESS!!! FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THIS WITH AS LITTLE EFFORT AS POSSIBLE!!!! Gold introduced me to Espanso, which is a program that lets you set up keyboard shortcuts to insert phrases, which was a MAAAAAASSIVE time saver in the html department, as it allowed me to just rapid fire paste in all the many html classes we stacked for the presentation of the site. even if you are doing a script on a wiki where everything does look like ['''Siffrin:''' says a thing] you will still be doing yourself a favor if you can shorten that '''Siffrin:''' to just typing :s .

As a side note, I also wanna say like. The popularity of isat script project is a complete outlier. Other game scripts may be used by a maniac like me to overanalyze the plot structure of Sonic 06, but you're very likely not going to see that recognition. I love doing this, because I want these resources to exist for myself. I don't do this for the good of the fandom, but because it is useful to me. I started this because I was writing isat fanfic, and got tired of looking up dialogue on youtube or booting up my own game.

Do I know if anyone found my FE6 scripts useful? No. Do I know if anyone is going through Veyle/Quotes and appreciating that I transcribed all the fucking battle voice clips? No. Do I know if someone appreciates me accurately labelling all voice lines from the ring polishing minigame in engage? Hell no. I don't know, I'm never going to get feedback on that. Those are wiki pages, anyone can edit them, they don't have viewcounts or comments I can look at, and the fandom just isn't as prone to taking screenshots and posting about them line by line as isat.

Isat blew the fuck up on tumblr. I'm not saying you'll get no recognition at all, but if you are relying on external motivators, you are probably going to peter out. There are pages I've worked on for other script things that I've genuienly not touched in two years because I just didn't feel like it, and that's also okay.

TLDR:

Figure out how to get the text you need with the least effort possible (and figure out whether doing that is even possible at all!), figure out what scope you're actually willing to put up with, and present it with the least effort possible, because everything else just isn't sustainable. Streamline streamline streamline. Be prepared to spend hours on this and maybe like find a new favorite podcast to just copy paste text to, because honestly, doing this is also pretty zen.

And most importantly, sparkle on, don't forget to have fun! Even if it seems big and intimidating, you can still make it just a fun side project, and slowly chip away at it over time. Rome wasn't built in a day, and with all the advantages going for isat script project (additional manpower, unencrypted files, easy tools for game examination) it still took over a year to complete.

(loop voice) Don't make the same mistakes I did, okay?

oh, yeah, one last thing, if you're not putting it on a wiki and ARE making your own website, ABSOLUTELY PUT IT ON GITHUB!!!! setting up so any changes to the main branch on github get reflected onto neocities is pretty easy and you only need to do it once, and what this allows is to just have random strangers show up and fix your problems for you. sometimes someone will just show up and fix five bajillion typos and then leave. or they'll stick around and help with more stuff and wowie you have a semblance of a team now.

if you're doing it on a wiki, find like, the wiki discord, if someone is interested in chipping in. if you're doing your own website, put it on github. do it. do it do it do it.

[berrrydameyve]

okay do do you guys want anti-AI spiderverse badges??

Miles G saying "fuck ai, pick up a pencil." for example

[the-ren-and-stimpy-fan-club]

I Was a Teenage Stimpy

Stimpy's a BAAAAAADDDDD MANNNNNNN

[some-pers0n]

interesting ideas about AI art and by no means am I trying to send hate but I believe majority of people hate AI art is because it's truly just the byproduct of a giant plinko board bouncing through pieces of art made by artists who put love and care and SOUL into their work. A visual product of a math formula. While it's "art" in the most litteral sense, not having a true human behind it putting though and effort into its every detail, for many people (myself included) devalues it from a tradition artists work.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that AI art is inherently unequal to non Ai art, specifically for this reason. (Hope this made sense sorry if it's incoherent)

I agree in that sense there. I personally do not find myself wanting to engage in a work when I purposefully know the creator had used AI to create the entire product. Something something,,,I cannot find myself getting invested in something that is little more than a product. I don't wanna read a fic about my blorbos when it was written by Chat-GPT

I also agree with the idea that a lot of people hate AI art because of this heavily emotional, debatably reactionary mindset that stems from one thing: fairness. It's the same sort of emotion I find one gets if all of the work on a group project gets shafted onto them whilst their fellow peers sit idly by. It feels unfair to sink hours into your craft, spending all this time fighting to develop your skills and flourish as an artist, only to see someone type half a paragraph and have a machine spit back something that looks not half bad. Let's be honest with ourselves here and say that AI art, at least in a visual regard, has progressed quite a bit to the point where most of the mistakes people find can be dismissed as wonky perspective and the line art being a bit fucky, which is something a ton of artists struggle with too

People develop a sort of a superiority complex over it. I can't blame them honestly. A number of times I've felt it too when people tell me they're using Chat-GPT as though it were Google and when I see my family members and friends playing around with AI art. I gotta bite my tongue and choke back a chortle, both because it's kind of a dick move and also because I don't want to relish in this feeling. It's infectious though to feel as though you have an edge over another person just because you abstain from using Chat-GPT or whatever. Not to be all "grrgrgrr you should LOVE Chat-GPT and if you dare to say anything bad then you are EVILL!!" of course though. It's emotions. They're messy, intense, and oftentimes you don't really realize when you're feeling since you get locked into your perspective. Yet, I think it's important to realize a lot of hatred of this generative AI stems from emotions. Reactionary ideals and claims stem from emotions after all

I think ultimately what the conversation about generative AI should revolve around is about the concerns of labour. The several strikes from a while back from VFX artists and scriptwriters come to mind. They are most at stake from generative AI as tools like Chat-GPT are cheaper and more cost-effective than paying an actual employee for their time and effort. I would also mention the environmental issues, but if we were to talk about that we would also have to acknowledge the fact that so, so much water is being used up daily to generate power for servers. Hell, this post alone will probably contribute to drying up some marsh in the greater scheme of things

Anywho yada yada TL;DR: I agree yes but I also think it's important to recognize that a good chunk of your hatred to Chat-GPT stems from feeling cheated and a sense of pride and superiority over others for simply not using it. There is no quality to Chat-GPT that makes it inherently evil. I can't get upset at my grandma for sending me a photo of her and her dog that went through an AI anime filter. I can feel maybe some exhaustion when seeing a fellow classmate using Chat-GPT to write their essay, but ultimately I write my own work for the love of the game. I can get upset however at those in higher power who use it to push artists out of jobs. Chat-GPT is a tool that has its pros and cons and I think it's reductive to just basically sit there and hiss like a vampire when presented with a cross when faced with the mere word "AI", especially when your only big argument for disliking it is based purely in feeling cheated when someone types a prompt into a program and art that would've taken you seven hours to draw gets spit out in about a minute or two

[the-tenth-arcanum]

someone at work shared the link to a site aimed at non-native speakers that can identify your accent. it clocked me as an Italian immediately which was extremely humbling. I then decided I needed to fool the algorithm into thinking I was a native speaker (win The Game). I managed to get english a couple of times eventually (it said it couldn't identify any regional specific features) but apparently when I'm trying really hard to sound like a native brit I sound mostly german which was interesting

[doedipus]

the fact that people keep vagueposting about palworld discourse makes it very difficult to blacklist posts talking about palworld. I don't care whether you think it's neat or not, just at least say the name of the game when you're talking about it so people who aren't on twitter don't have to think about it. thanks in advance.

[straightforwardpolls]

if someone used AI tools while writing, from which stage would you consider the final product as "not their own work"? - at any stage at all - brainstorming/research - drafting - revising - proofreading - after completion (e.g using it to write a promotional blurb)

[ladyyomiart]

Bringing more old Hakuouki art! ⚔️🌸 This is a 2015 artwork featuring Heisuke and Chizuru in their Hekketsuroku outfits that I did when I was first learning soft shading coloring!

[scarletfasinera]

Got blocked before I could ever even see the message lmao. The answer is that I am a Communist, and as a Communist, I've read Wage Labor & Capital. hope this helps

[ai-innova7ions]

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[halamshiral]

i don't trust inzoi 😬

[kyonite]

man does it ever strike you how fucking useless 90% of the AI shit companies are trying to peddle is? like especially for creatives it's just so functionally fucking useless.

"oh but I can use it to write the manual for using this tool" is genuinely something my boss said to me earlier today and I was like. do you know how AI works? do you know that in order to effectively write the manual for that thing, it needs to reference another manual that was already written for the thing? another manual for the thing which was,,,, wait for it,,, written by a human.

it's just so many of the use cases that people try to point out for creatives are just like. functionally fucking useless for many reasons but esp because it's referencing something SOMEONE ALREADY DID. why do I want a robot to regurgitate some shit that a serbian man already wrote on a website in 2009. he already did a fine job. why is the robot here.