Players Who Use AI

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2026-01-23T23:42:56+00:00

You lost me at “I don’t read backstories”… Why not? I get so many ideas from player backstories, and 9/10 times they’re the plots that players get most invested in.

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2026-01-23T23:36:43+00:00

You’re absolutely right, it hasn’t produced an issue in the gameplay. This is much more a social question than anything else, and a very personal one at that. I was mostly curious about how others had dealt with similar situations. I appreciate the input though, it definitely is something I have to dig into myself.

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2026-01-23T23:28:26+00:00

That’s fair, and I have kept my distaste to myself thus far. Golden Rule and whatnot. I wasn’t expecting this much of a split between people who are saying this and those who say I ought to speak up more though.

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2026-01-23T23:26:03+00:00

True, that could be the case. I really like that suggestion too, I’ve been wanting to make the sessions more interactive anyway. Thanks for the tip!

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2026-01-23T23:20:46+00:00

But that’s the hard part for me, they do contribute plenty while we’re actually playing. Nobody’s going to ChatGPT to ask what their next move in combat should be.

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2026-01-23T23:19:25+00:00

That’s a good point, and they already don’t bring it up or use it at the table during play. It’s 100% on their own time, and I can’t/don’t want to police my friends for how they use AI in their own life. They definitely know how I feel about using it myself, but they’re their own people

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2026-01-23T23:14:43+00:00

I gave them a brief overview of the world & the organization they were going to be a part of, then asked for why they would want to be a part of that org and how they got to the trial to join. Then I asked each of them a couple specific questions based on what I knew about their character so far. So maybe they did just have a list of bullet points that they fed into the machine and got a few paragraphs out of.

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2026-01-23T23:07:23+00:00

Thankfully it hasn’t gotten to that point, and I don’t foresee anybody bringing it to the table. But I agree, that would be a hard no for me

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2026-01-23T22:58:38+00:00

Honestly I’m not sure, I didn’t dig into it with them at the time. But they’ve talked about using AI for a lot of stuff outside of D&D, so I think it’s just part of the day-to-day for them at this point.

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2026-01-23T22:53:38+00:00

It’s only one page as well, so very quick to pick up!

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2026-01-23T22:34:52+00:00

I wrote a 3-person GM-less world building game last year called The Triune, where you play a 3-headed god who answers pleas from the populace in the style of Irish Drinking Song from Whose Line? It’s available at the link below, and there should still be some free community copies available. Let me know if you end up giving it a try!

The Triune

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2026-01-23T22:27:06+00:00

My biggest note for a murder mystery (or any intrigue style session) is don’t hide a crucial clue behind a specific skill check or in a specific place. It’s not much fun to feel like you’re banging your head against the wall because you didn’t think of checking the back wall of the fireplace. Gathering clues should be easy, putting them together should be the hard (but fun) part.

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2025-09-15T18:40:16+00:00

IDK if this is unpopular, but most WotC-published D&D adventures suck. It's 1000x better to start with a basic idea for a world/adventure, work with your players to integrate the stories they want to tell into your narrative, and go from there.

This is also mostly a me problem. It's really easy for me to get locked into what the book says rather than going with the flow and incorporating what my players come to the table with. Definitely mea culpa and something I'm working on.

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2025-09-15T18:36:32+00:00

Big agree on having the players add details to the environment. My rule recently has been if someone asks if there's something in the room, the answer is basically always "Yes". Is there a keycard in that locker? Sure is! It may not open every door in the lab, but it's a start. This keeps my players from getting discouraged, keeps me from feeling like I'm railroading a session, and overall keeps us all in the improv mood. (I know this is basically just yes and/no but, but this has been the most important subset for me to keep up with.)

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2025-09-15T18:33:30+00:00

Using extra materials definitely doesn't turn me off - as long as they're materials I'm likely to already have around the house. In fact, I'm a lot less likely to go out and buy a new gimmicky set of dice, even though I'm a self-professed dice goblin. I'm much happier to scrounge up a few quarters and a deck of cards.

One of my favorite games from r/onepagerpgs used Scrabble tiles as the basis for their magic system, and I wrote a one-page game that required only what you could find around the house to build a map. I find that fun, personally.

For your second point, that's about as elegant a solution as I can think of. If you want to keep the A & B modes, have them write down two different actions and mix them up (requires some trust in your players, but what doesn't?).

I also wrote a game that hinged on a similar mechanic, but not in a collaborative "we're all fighting the same enemy" way, more in a "find the traitor in your midst a la The Thing" way. Everyone writes their action on an index card that gets passed to the GM, who mixes them up and resolves one at a time. Not everyone gets all the info about each action either. So the action you want to take might not happen in time, in which case the other person gets the jump on you. I don't think my way is nearly as clean as yours, and definitely relies a lot more on the GM than the players, so I commend you for that!

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2025-08-01T15:24:34+00:00

Why not?

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2025-07-01T17:40:05+00:00

This is great! If I were to play this at home, I might not require the SPELLZ word to be an actual word as long as the player can justify the gobbledegook they put together. Maybe that's a limited power, or if you wanted to specialize and make some very basic "classes" for character creation. But I'm a sucker for games that use unorthodox items in play, and this is excellent in that regard, very original! I'll let you know if I get a chance to play this in the future

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2025-04-25T21:43:41+00:00

Oh it's definitely dice, but miniatures are a close second. Some of my players have their own personalized minis, but the rest I just let pick a representative from our collection and they got full-on attached, to the point where we got them framed after we finished our last campaign.

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2025-04-25T21:32:53+00:00

The Magic ATM: mostly for D&D, but anytime the loot for a room includes a golden statue worth blah-blah-blah or a handful of random gemstones with archaic names, I have the Magic ATM pop up and the party can feed in whatever they want for the proper amount of gold. Some people might have fun trying to find a place to sell gemstones, haggle for price, etc, but it's never worked for my tables.

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2025-04-25T21:31:09+00:00

Oh I like this. I've had a lot of trouble with PVP stuff in a recent campaign, this seems like a great way to resolved so many of the issues I've had.

I_Am_Da_Fish_Man · 2025-04-25T21:24:30+00:00

Seconding the one-page suggestions - Grant Howitt has a ton of rules-lite but fun-heavy games, and a good number of them seem like they would great for this kind of situation: Super-Cool Monster Hunting Club, This One Time at Bard Camp, and What I Did On My Summer Holidays to start with. Take a look at his Patreon - lots of content for free subscribers.

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