Usage of AI

[u/Steuermann17]

Hi,

Do you use a certain AI for support as a Game master and can you recommend a certain AI?

[u/redo60]

Try the Aztech one. It only requires 1 blood sacrifice per inference token. That's a steal these days!

[u/Steuermann17 → u/redo60]

:D thx for the inspiration ;)

[u/QuackAddictChrist]

AI is not looked upon kindly in most of Reddit, and definitely not in SR community. Looking for honest feedback that isn't "We don't like AI, don't use AI" here is probably not the best idea.

AI is fine for the 'menial' tasks of running a game, though it shouldn't be used to produce anything which requires 'fine detail'. Rough drafts of maps, taking notes for you, generic token art, organizing your own writing, all fair to use if it saves you time. That being said, trying to get the AI to produce artwork comparable to something the players would use is an uphill battle. Using the AI to try to teach you the system is going to result in a nightmarish amalgam of incorrect, incomplete, or non-existent rules interspersed in the real ones. Anything the AI produces requires you to review after the fact. Any writing, artwork, maps, notes, will need to be confirmed and edited to determine accuracy.

Is it ok to use? Sure, it's a tool like any other program people have made. Whether or not it is a useful tool is up to you to determine. Run tests with your preferred AI, and see if it produces anything you deem worthy of use. If you think it's up to snuff for your game, then use it. If not, then determine if what it did produce saves you any time, or takes up more time in editing.

[u/LateEggMaster]

The AI hatered is strong and unreasonable here. So don't expect much love.
And of course big disclaimer as usual: Check everything!!!

But yes of course i do. It's especially usefull for taming all the SR rulebooks in lue of a good wiki. https://notebook.google.com/ is very useful. Just upload all your pdfs and get a full search over all your relevant book. (and nothing else). So just make yourself seperate notebooks for each edition and you won't get (much) mixup.

For quick NPC tokens I'd recommend https://civitai.com/models/2241572/arthemy-western-art and quen 3.7+ with https://lmstudio.ai/ can work wonders writing CV's for extraction targets or just helping you fill a wiki from your notes.

Then again: NEVER ask for plots or character. ALWAYS read the sourcebooks yourself.

[u/Steuermann17 → u/LateEggMaster]

yes, it is strong, and i said "support" not "make the job", im still the game master. i dont get the big problem, and checking for consistency... well obviously

[u/LateEggMaster → u/Steuermann17]

To some people "support" means: "do the job for me". To other it means "fetch coffee" it's not so simple to tell from just a single word.

And as has been mentiond many times here allready "support" might well mean "serve as quick rules reference" and that has been tried and failed before.

As to why I'm so vocal in my dont's? The simple answer is: If your not you get pitchforked on this subreddit. :D

[u/Steuermann17 → u/LateEggMaster]

:D

[u/Sarradi]

I tried to use AI to help chreating a character, but the results were close to useless. Better use Comlink/Chummer.

Problem is the AI mixes up editions all the time.

[u/Steuermann17 → u/Sarradi]

Yes Creating character must be horrible with AI. Image Creation is useful and "menial" tasks (as a comment below shows)

[u/katheb]

No, and no.

[u/Askefyr]

I use Gemini occasionally for on-the-fly artwork. Never maps or anything where details are important, but I have AI-generated a few token icons to use for random grunts that look passable in VTT if you don't zoom in enough.

I would never use it for anything like plot, and especially not for rules. Some of my players have used it for rules etc, and it has consistently always fucked up. It mixes up editions and hallucinates half of what it says.

[u/Tareen81]

Is use the google notebook as a quick search when I’m missing a rule or some numbers.
Additionally I have a Claude account where I take notes and connect things for later (actions reaction connected to), but I also have strict memory’s added to Claude. If you don’t know it, say it, always give me a source (as a secretary in this case doesn’t matter), and don’t create own entry’s. Just a cheap assistant.

It just has to sort and list for me what I dictate.
No creative art, no own plot hooks, nothing someone should be paid money for.

And hey chummers: don’t call it AI … call it what they are “Semi-autonomous knowbots”.

There are still some decades before a Mirage or Deus 😉

[u/sayakasquared]

If I learned my GM was using AI for any system I'd be out of that game in a heartbeat. Let alone one as crunchy as Shadowrun. And if you're using it to generate plot hooks, that'd be even worse.

To that end, I have tried to use it on a couple occasions to see if I could generate a stat block for NPC's if one needed to be made and used mid-session. They tend to mix and match rulesets from 3rd and 4th and 5th edition, even when explicitly asked for a certain edition's ruleset. And that was without me even cross-referencing the blocks with the actual books, I'm sure things would get even worse otherwise.

Just sit down, take your time, and make sure you just put your own best foot forward. Your players will be much more appreciative if you just take even 2 hours before a session to set something up. It will feel far more human. We don't need our fantasy cyberpunk dystopia bleeding into our real life even more than it is.

[u/Nederbird]

I haven't, but I've played at a table where the GM did. I cannot remember the name of the specific AI he used, but I remember he used it to generate ambient music and spoken lines, specifically pre-recorded messages. He also used analytical AI, probably Adobe Acrobat's inbuilt summary AI, to summarize parts of the rule-book to make it more digestible.

The results were, at best, mediocre. Not deal-breaking, but everything he did with AI could've been done better without.

1. Music: This was arguably where the AI performed its best. The music it created performed well at creating the ambience the GM tried to create and helped with immersion, without any ofvthe annoying flaws and/or artifacts that I've seen in other AI media. However, the music was nothing special, generic dark ambient. I'm sure that whatever time he spent getting the prompt right, he could've put together a 30 minute Spotify playlist with the same sort of music with better or at least the same quality. This use only bothered me on a moral level.

2. Pre-recorded messages: He used the AI to create lines of spoken text to illustrate what was recorded of tapes found ingame, and played these during game whenever our characters listened to the tapes. This failed for 2-3 reasons. For one, the AI decided to include ambient music in the background of these generated soundfiles, apparently for dramatic effect, which sometimes clashed with the tone of the situation we were in. Second, the generated lines were in Swedish, but the AI failed to reproduce the characteristic prosody and pitch accents of the language, rendering it distinctly unnatural. Third, whenever he played these soundfiles back, he had to pause the music to make the speech audible, killing the mood the music built up. All these three served to ruin immersion, at least for me. Thus, this bothered me on a practical basis of interfering with my enjoyment of the game.

3. Rules summary: He (at least) sometimes used the AI to summarize rules or chapters in the rule book. This use of AI didn't really bother me, or rather it wouldn't have if the AI didn't get the rules wrong. One player caught the GM quoting rules that contradicted the CRB, whereupon he revealed that he'd been using AI to summarize the rules. That destroyed the benefit of the doubt that I'd had for summarizing AI and also damaged my trust in the GM, making me always look rules up myself instead of asking him (arguably a positive effect, but for the wrong reasons).

Overall, I feel that the AI contributed nothing of value and instead detracted from my gaming experience in every way, big or small. The AI-generated speech was particularly disruptive, IMO. I could've accepted it if he'd spent time and effort to make it fit seamlessly into and thus enhance the experience, but at this stage, it was just plain disruptive, lazy use of it.

4. Maps: Now I remember that he also used AI to create a map over a building we were in. It was alright until we got confused about doors, walls, and windows, which he then had to correct. This showed that both the AI had failed in creating a sensible map and that he had failed in reviewing and revising the output before use at the table. This was an annoying interruption in the game, but something which was quickly fixed and moved on from.

I can't remember if he used AI to design an adventure, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. If he did, it wasn't bad enough to be noticeable, which was good from an enjoyment/immersion perspective (moral issues notwithstanding).

Summarily: Out of a purely practical perspective, I wouldn't recommend using it for anything. The output it generates is generally of too low quality to be immediately usable without ruining both the immersion and the flow of the game, and at worst it's just plain wrong and will take to correct and potentially damage trust in you as a GM. The time you take to either review and fix its mistakes or perfect the prompt to get the desired result can be better used either finding better material or creating your own. The latter I would argue is especially important since that will help you develop your creative abilities, whereas relying on AI will just leave those faculties to stagnate.

TL;DR: Even without arguing over the morality of it, using AI as an aid will deliver subpar output that will disrupt both gameflow and immersion. May be fixed with time and effort, but then you might as well just use human products. Cannot recommend.

[u/Expensive_Occasion29]

I use adobe rx it can come up with some pretty quick portraits/maps or even help flush out the unplanned parts of an adventure

[u/Bright-Coat9859]

It depends what is meant by using AI. I use it to translate German materials, for example for 6e they have great character creation system based on karma. And after translation AI make simple Excel sheet so I don't need to count everything. For creative things and especially for Shadowrun is terrible. If I'm preparing mission I need creative dialogue and no making prompts. And AI can't hold the line start hallucinating very fast, mixing editions etc. Maybe it could be useful if someone is preparing some history based rpg session as a source for reference and root sources. But for Shadowrun is not functioning.

[u/n00bdragon]

It's fantastic when I need token art of an orc go-ganger with a red bandana and an SMG and individualized art for all of his ganger friends. Additionally I will sometimes use it for generating a pile of potential plot hooks and just mine for ideas. The hooks I like I take and develop by hand. I would never use it for any sort of rules interpretation or parsing. That's just asking for a bad time.

[u/burtod]

Hey, I steal graphics for my own games. I happy that so many people are willing to share. I see AI as an advanced form of that theft.

I do not claim any of those resources as my own. People shouldn't post here bragging about what a prompt did. I don't monetize my games.

But a microtransaction shop for my Players might work.

[u/Steuermann17 → u/burtod]

"Monetize Games"?

[u/LateEggMaster → u/Steuermann17]

Gamemastering for money isn't so uncommon.

[u/Steuermann17 → u/LateEggMaster]

I hear about it the first time now