Publishing an AI-Generated RPG Book

Source: Pexels

Publishing an AI-Generated RPG Book

Hello everyone!

A few days ago I've published a rant on the HiveBR Community about a stupid video I saw on Instagram teaching you "How to make a gazillion dollars per day with Artificial Intelligence". The idea was using ChatGPT to write a whole book for you, and then publishing the (incredibly) shitty result as an eBook on Amazon.

How were you going to make 4 thousand dollars per day with some badly-written books? Who knows! It's a goddamit mystery!

<insert random rambling about that stupid tutorial that made me lose 2 minutes of my life with its gigantic bullshit>

Nonetheless, I've started to think about this, and I think that I had a somewhat acceptable artistic idea to try out.

See, I'm a RPG author myself. Not a professional one, but I've already published some "one-shot adventures" (short stories that are meant to be played by a group of players in a single gaming session).

Source: GeekNarative

And, on my personal RPG playgroups, I've been using AI-generated content with fairly good results. I'm talking about secondary stuff like writing the description of a random location that the players are going to visit once, or to write about the personality of a NPC (non-playable characters) that the players are going to meet during the game.

For example, let's imagine that I decide that the players are going to visit a dwarven village inside of a volcano. It's not a particularly important place for the adventure, just a random place that they'll visit for a few minutes. Instead of having to spend time writing an intrincate description of this village (that's probably going to be useless anyway), I'm having ChatGPT to write me something like this:

This dwarven village is located deep within a dormant volcano, surrounded by miles of dense magma and smoke. Its location is well-guarded, with its entrance hidden behind a waterfall of lava and a watchtower at the peak of the volcano. The village itself is a bustling hub of activity, with narrow winding cobblestone paths lined with small wooden shacks and stone dwellings. The buildings are all crafted from the native volcanic stone and feature intricate carvings and designs.

Source: Reddit

It's not relevant, to the story, if the paths of this village are made of cobblestones, or if there's a watchtower in the peak of the volcano. I wouldn't ever spend my time, as a Dungeon Master, creating this kind of description to a random location.

But now that the AI wrote this in 10 seconds, I'm going to incorporate these AI-generated elements into my game: if the players want to visit the watchtower to take a good look at the surrounding area, so be it! If the players want to find out why there are dwarves living in filthy wooden shacks like dirty elves, well, that's a nice story hook isn't it?

And if the players choose to just ignore those elements and keep with the game, well, who cares? I wasn't the one who wrote them, so I'm not feeling salty for spending time creating stuff that the players didn't even paid attention.

The City of Valenthia

So here comes my idea: I'm wanting to create a AI-Generated RPG Book, describing the whole gaming scenario, its' characters, plot hooks, etc., all with ChatGPT.

I would obviously make it very, VERY clear that the book was entirely created with artificial intelligence, that's all AI-generated content, yadda yadda, and I would publish it for free on DriveThruRPG, as my idea isn't making money with this neither pretending that I'm the author, but just testing the artistic possibilities of the technology.

(Also, I'm very aware that the end result will probably be very poor, and I'm definitely not trying to scam people out of their money.)

I'm thinking something like the World's Largest City, a famous oldschool RPG book that "describes hundreds of NPCs inhabiting detailed locations across a dozen massive districts, with encounters, conflicts and adventure hooks that lead to thousands of hours of gameplay".

But, in this case, all the content (the descritption of the buildings, the characters living in the city, the plot, the missions, the politics, everything) will be generated by ChatGPT, with only a few manual adjustments by myself here and there to make things make sense when put all together.

Just as a preview, I've made ChatGPT write the description for the city I'll create:

The city is called Valenthia. Valenthia is located at the center of the world, surrounded by mountains and forests. It is the largest city in the world and the most important political center.

Valenthia is a sprawling metropolis with a population of over a million people. The city is divided into five districts, each representing a different aspect of life in Valenthia. The center of the city is the Palace District, home to the royal palace and all the major government buildings. The city is also home to many temples, shrines, and other religious sites.

The city is home to a variety of shops, restaurants, pubs, and other businesses, as well as a bustling market district. The streets are filled with merchants, entertainers, and adventurers. The city is known for its vibrant nightlife and festive atmosphere.

Valenthia is a major hub for trade and commerce, acting as a hub for merchants from all over the world. The city is also home to a large number of artisans, crafters, and other skilled workers. Valenthia is also home to a large number of magical academies and research centers.

The city is defended by a large army of warriors and a powerful magical defense system. The city is also home to a large number of magical creatures, such as dragons, elves, and other mythical creatures. Valenthia is a bustling and vibrant city, filled with adventure and excitement.

As you can see, just with this 5-paragraph description of the city there are already so much interesting content to be explored in a RPG game:

Which are these five districts that the city is divided into?

What type of exotic goods are sold in those shops?

What kind of missions those far-travelling merchants have for willing adventurers?

And those magical academies, are they willing to accept new apprentices, and at what cost?

There are dragons living inside the city, but how? Where do they actually live? Are they OK with having to share their space with lesser beings like humans, or they're secretly plotting to topple the government and dominate Valenthia?

By the way: Valenthia is a really cool-sounding name for a fantasy city.

Thanks for reading this post, and until next time!

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