Well, it's that time again. Time to get dressed up, setup the booth, and get back on stage to celebrate fandom with all my Denver friends. This is also the time of year when I dust off the content from last year and update it for the new year.
This year is an exciting one. The end of 2022 had WOTC/Hasbro (the owners of Dungeons and Dragons) go off the deep end in their attempt to monetize this system we love (but are not married to) and see such a response from the community they backpedaled like a congressman caught with an escort. The net result is a revised Open Gaming License (OGL) that makes the core rules free forever, for everyone.
The other thing that came out of late last year is ChatGPT. ChatGPT is the fastest website to 100,000,000 users ever... it took about 3 months from the launch of the public app for them to be part of the social dialogue. Looking at where it is today, I would say it is the most valuable tool ever made available to the D&D community.
If you want to have some fun go to https://chat.openai.com and use the following prompt:
I want to play D&D 5e with my friends and I would like you to create a character for me. I want to play a young halfling who has decided to be a warrior. She ran away from home and has a feral cat as a companion. She is not really a warrior, but a bard, only she prefers to use weapons instead of magic and insists that she is a great warrior. Make her level 5. Give her equipment and magic items (3) that make sense for a 5th level bard (who wants to be a warrior). Give her a backstory that isn't really tragic, but that she exaggerates to sound tragic. Select her spells. Use the ability scores: 12, 13, 16, 9, 11, 17 in whatever order makes sense. Oh, and give me a detailed description of her appearance, all I want is for her to wear bright clothing and have blonde hair.
What you will get is a detailed character that will be unique to you and can easily be transferred to a character sheet and played. You do not need ANY knowledge of D&D to create the character, all you need to do is tell the AI what you want to play. You are free to leave out the race (halfling) and class (bard) and try something more nebulous. Like:
I want you to create a D&D 5e character for me. I do not know what to pick, but I like playing magic users in video games, so something magic would be cool. Make the character totally complete and playable, so pick all the things I would need. I want to be mischievous and play someone with a dark past who is kind of quirky and dark. Can you make them tall, and have them dress up dark? My dungeon master has said we will be at 1st level and can have one cool magic item, and a cool pet.
Again, you will get a completely created character that is ready to transfer to a character sheet (or dndbeyond) and start playing. My favorite part, the AI is context aware, so you can ask it questions.
Try "What is the characters family situation?" or ask it anything else you would like. Maybe you want to add some other things like:
"Can you give the character some tattoos"
"Can you change their backstory to add that they ran away from a bad home situation"
"Can you give them a secret that they are protecting and only tell those they trust most in the world" - this could be something that you share later with the party once you get to know them.
The potential of ChatGPT to change how you are able to access and play the game is huge. And character creation is only the beginning. You can ask it about rules:
"I am playing D&D 5e and do not understand exhaustion, can you explain it to me?"
"Can you explain a long rest vs short rest in D&D 5e to me?"
The better your prompt the more specific the responses will be.
Anyhow, I hope you will join us at Denver FanExpo for our panels where we will go over:
Worldbuilding Tips and Tricks
How to Play D&D
How to start and run a campaign
and, because our fans asked for it, Live Play!!
And check back here after the show to see the content we presented any time.
