Hasbro CEO claims that all of his friends are using AI in their D&D game, which is a 'clear signal' that we should embrace it.

Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, have had a very public and very bumpy relationship in recent times over the use of AI marketing materials and sourcebooks. The outrage that follows is enough to force apologies and complete backtracking.

Chris Cocks, CEO of Hasbro (WoTC parent company), is still very excited about the use of AI in D&D. Cocks, speaking at a Goldman Sachs event (via Futurism), casually mentions "inside development, we've been using AI," but clarifies that it's mainly machine-learning and proprietary stuff. "We will deploy this significantly and liberally both as a knowledge worker's aid and as a developmental aid."

Cocks, who apparently plays D&D regularly with "30 or forty people" (I barely get time to play two TTRPGs, Chris, aren't you just in a bunch West Marches campaign?) has a bizarre thought. Cocks notes that "not a single person doesn't use AI in some way for campaign development, character development, or story ideas." This is a clear sign that we should embrace it.

I'm not going sit on a throne and proclaim my ethical superiority. While I've never used generative AI for any of my TTRPG group, I have definitely used Pinterest to get some reference images in the past. Few and far between are homebrew campaigns created by the DM. I'll admit that generative AI doesn't seem too far away from that. If it's four random people that I'll probably never meet messing around on a Discord Server, then whatever. I don't like it, but your life is yours.

But campaign development? Character development? Character development is about 90% of my job, and a big reason why I enjoy running games. Cocks continues, "The themes of using AI to enable user generated content, using AI in order to streamline new player introductions, and using AI for emergent story-telling--I believe you're going see that not only our hardcore brands such as D&D, but also multiple brands."

This enthusiasm is in direct opposition to the spirit of Wizards AI art FAQ. It reads, "Magic and D&D are built on the creativity, innovation, and hard work by talented people who sculpt the beautiful, creative games." We require that all artists, writers, and other creatives who contribute to the Magic TCG or the D&D TTRPG refrain from using AI-generated tools to create the final Magic or D&D product. This is a reference to AI art, but it's still a long way from Cocks' apparent appetite for the stuff.

I don't really know. If the tech didn't exhaust the snot out of me, I could see an alternate, less old-man-shouts-at-cloud version of myself taking a generative AI story for a jolly once or twice as a novelty experience. What's the point of using generative AI for writing and art? Aren't your actions more than anything robbing you?

AI can't duplicate the joy of seeing your table become attached to your NPCs or a twist that you designed to shock your players. No proprietary D&D tool could duplicate the giddy feelings you get when someone asks lore questions or wants to incorporate an element of your universe into their backstory. It can't give the satisfaction of a well balanced encounter or a homebrew mechanism you made working. It can't allow you to, well, share a story with friends, which is the main reason we all bother.

I don't really care about secondary tools like character creation, or rules questions. AI is notorious for generating false information. However, it doesn't mean that such models are useless. AI could theoretically be used to generate random names or NPCs, which is something that many DMs already do using traditional methods. I don't understand the appeal of Cocks games that have a 10-player strength, creating worlds and characters with no human touch. His adoration of the technology has me worried that Hasbro will continue to trickle the worst of videogame nonsense onto paper.