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The Best LLM for Generating RPG Stuff – Your Brain

by Mike on 30 September 2024

Your brain, fueled by books and augmented with simple tools, is your best resource for preparing and running awesome tabletop roleplaying games.

Many GMs and players say they find a lot of value out of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and other generative AI tools like Midjourney or Dall-E. Who am I to tell them they’re not finding them as useful as they say they are?

But there's a high cost for generative AI.

They're built on people’s intellectual property without their permission and without compensation.
They use tons of power and water.
They displace workers with shitty AI alternatives.
They fill the internet with slop.

With this in mind, we can ask ourselves two questions:

Is generative AI really helping you more than other tools and techniques you have available?
Is generative AI worth the cost to the world to use it?

Your answers to these questions may be "yes". That's up to each of us to decide and I'm not here to judge. I find LLMs useful for small coding projects but they don't help me with RPGs. They offer the illusion of help, but my best RPG work is the work I do myself.

The Current State of Generative AI in TTRPGs

Creators, companies, and hobbyists of tabletop roleplaying games find themselves on both sides of the generative AI value discussion.

Chris Cocks, CEO of Hasbro (the parent company in charge of D&D) is super excited for AI in D&D, saying:

I play with probably 30 or 40 people regularly. There’s not a single person who doesn’t use AI somehow for either campaign development or character development or story ideas. That’s a clear signal that we need to be embracing it.

On the other side, Wolfgang Baur of Kobold Press issued the No-AI Pledge:

We don’t use generative AI art, we don’t use AI to generate text for our game design, and we don’t believe that AI is magical pixie dust that makes your tabletop games better.

Among 3,700 players and GMs I surveyed, about 3 in 10 use generative AI when preparing for or playing RPGs. There’s a lot of divisiveness between these groups:

It helps me immensely. I’m the type that’ll stare blankly at a screen for hours before being able to write a single word, so having AI to get things started has helped me in everything.

No, and I never will. Never use plagiarism software.

Your Best Large Language Model – Your Brain

You already possess the most powerful computer in known existence – available any time to help you generate awesome ideas for your tabletop roleplaying game. Instead of nuclear power, it runs on meat and plants and other garbage like a Mr. Fusion in Back to the Future. It has no monthly fee. It’s not killing creative jobs, stealing the work of millions, literally boiling the ocean, or filling the internet with crap.

Your best RPG tool sits right behind your eyes.

It’s easy to get caught up in the “magic” of large language models but, in my experience, they’re not great for generating game content when compared to reading books and using your imagination.

Our brains – fed with great source material and simple tools like random tables – give us tons of ideas to fuel our games like they have for over 50 years.

GM Brain Tricks

We don’t need a data center the size of Ohio to think about our games. Here are some fun brain tricks to help you prepare and run awesome games.

Read sourcebooks. Highlight them. Reference things from other books. Take notes. Connect the dots. Enjoy the experience of diving into lore written by other human beings.
Think about your characters. Think about your villains. Write down secrets and clues connecting them to the world. Write some flash fiction to show your players where the villains are going and what plans they may be making.
Think up lists of ten things – NPCs, locations, monsters, quests, factions, secrets and clues, or anything else you need for your game.
Grab a Dyson map and fill out rooms with interesting features for your next adventure location.
Mash together random tables. Roll on multiple tables and combine the results into more meaningful random encounters.
Build your own faction tables for your campaign. Combine them with items, NPCs, quests, or locations for results customized around your campaign. See my Forgotten Realms factions and my Eberron factions for examples.

Find more brain tricks in these articles:

Other Fantastic Non-Generative-AI Tools

Here are other fantastic resources to help you shake up your brain, come up with awesome ideas, and run great games for your friends.

The Lazy GM’s Resource Document. A free creative-commons-released document including tons of random tables from the Lazy DM’s Workbook and Lazy DM’s Companion. Remix these lists to your heart’s content.
Perchance. An online tool to build your own random generators. The Lazy GM’s Random Generator, a Patreon exclusive feature, is built using Perchance.
Dyson Maps. Fantastic reskinnable maps. Pick one, jot down short room descriptions, and let your mind fill in the blanks.
Donjon.bin.sh. A fantastic and venerable random generator for all sorts of fantasy RPGs with a lot for D&D and 5e.
Stock art on DriveThruRPG. Great art by real artists with reasonable licenses at reasonable prices. If you’re looking for character or NPC portraits for your game, check out Inkwell Ideas’s Portrait Decks available in print and PDF.
Dread Thingonomicon. A huge book of random tables by Raging Swan for all sorts of fantasy situations.

Give Yourself Time and Space

In our always-on world, we seem to be in a constant state of FOMO. Whatever we’re doing now, there are a thousand other things we could be doing instead. Go for a walk. Do some structured daydreaming. Get away from your phone and computer for an hour. Grab physical books. Roll on random tables. Write your notes longhand. Pretend to be Gandalf in the old library of Minas Tirith blowing dust off old tomes to find ancient secrets.

You don’t need a large language model to read books for you and spit out half-truths and nonsense. Dive in yourself, cross-reference things, jot down thoughts, and come up with awesome ideas yourself for the game you’re going to run with your friends.

You are your best large language model.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Last week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Leaving Blanks and Return to Bittermold Keep – Shadowdark Gloaming Session 43 Lazy GM Prep.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video:

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers:

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

Give seeds of clues even on low ability checks.
Use static initiative to better time and pace battles. 5 for slow, 10 for medium, and 15 for fast creatures.
Spread out combatants and clarify the distances if trying to avoid all the baddies getting nuked at once.
If a spell you’re not familiar with sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Start your prep with a map of a cool location. Print it out. Jot down two word room descriptions. Put your strong start, secrets, NPCs, monsters, and treasure on the back.
A single sheet of paper is likely all you need for your prep notes.
Give monsters one cool trait to make them unique.