Since their inception, Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering have been repositories of fantastic art handcrafted by skilled artists. There's a whole sub-market under Magic: The Gathering where people buy full art to decorate their homes – needless to say, fans of these franchises enjoy their art.
That's why there's been so much trepidation about comments from the head of Wizards of the Coast's parent company, Hasbro, Chris Cocks, regarding the use of artificial intelligence. Cocks is a wholehearted advocate for the technology, although he has toned down some of his rhetoric lately, presumably due to fan backlash.
Hasbro's CEO loves AI, but he knows not everyone does
Windsoul Genasi by Goran Josic
In an interview with The Verge, Cocks admits that he personally uses artificial intelligence, but he tempers his enthusiasm with an acknowledgment that the Dungeons & Dragons community seems to have rejected the technology.
“I [use AI] all the time just for personal passion projects. [D&D] is kind of my jam, and I DM probably three or four groups. There's so much AI-based animation, images, text, sound effects and voice cloning on my computer, it would bog you down, says Cocks.
Tabletop roleplaying games offer a great opportunity to engage in collective storytelling with a group of people who have thoughts, ideas, and impulses as multifaceted as your own. I know exactly what it needs – an obscure, limited language model trained on Reddit posts and other people's passion.
If I may be dramatic for a moment, the use of generative artificial intelligence is the antithesis of everything that makes TTRPGs so pure and special. It is a corruption of the creative spirit that everyone channels when they sit at the table.
We can take solace in the fact that Cocks seems to understand that the technology is very unpopular with consumers of his products, and Hasbro is not currently plans to use AI in these areas, emphasis on currently.
“From a creative context, I think you have to think about it very carefully. There are certain brands that the audience, the creators, just don't want, so we don't even have pipelines for our video games or for Magic: The Gathering or D&D,” explains Cocks.
The CEO then adopts the typical corporate approach to AI, likening it to the “disruptive” rise of Napster in 2000. Cocks says the music industry is “more profitable than ever” because they hit the road through music streaming, but when confronted with the fact that profits in the music industry have been centralized to a few companies, Cocks says everyone should “accept.”
- Original release date
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1974
- Number of players
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2+
- Age recommendation
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12+ (although younger can play and enjoy)
- Length per game
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From 60 minutes to hours straight.
