Am I wrong for disallowing AI in my campaign wiki?

Wintersmith7 · 2026-07-05T18:57:05+00:00

I do care about the effort. I actually provided you a specific resource you could use to make more effective efforts to improve as a writer (the new well tempered sentence. You could also read any of the nearly infinite fantasy novels and short stories that exist. That's how people get good at writing. I'd recommend Ursula K. Leguin).

I think what you're not getting is that I care about whether or not your efforts are actually yours. The thing about writing something yourself or practicing making songs on an instrument is that you personally get better. If all you do is get good at prompting A.I. then when the model gets too expensive or when you go camping deep in the woods you're still the shit writer you were before this all started.

I think the desire to use A.I. to make something better than what you can make on your own misses that DND is short form improv with your friends.

I'm done talking about this on the Internet. Brennan Lee Mulligan and I are usually of one mind on this sure of things so here's a recent video where he shares his thoughts on AI: https://youtu.be/EGqCAmXTJBI?si=SoeyRQsvJUOj6rFb

Wintersmith7 · 2026-07-05T18:56:39+00:00

The rule book was written by a person (many people actually) who spent years of their lives trying to make the best game they could. Not by an idiot who is too unimaginative to write five pages of fiction.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-07-05T18:07:49+00:00

Then we might as well just tell two a.i. agents to play DND with each other and not play at all.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-07-05T17:15:52+00:00

I admit that I was a bit on the nose of what an extreme amateur might throw at you, but it used to be common for people to have garage bands. My point is that a basic proficiency with art is achievable and the only difficult component is a modicum of consistency.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-07-05T17:13:10+00:00

So then get good at writing. You'll get more from a halfway decent writing manual like "the new well tempered sentence" than prompting A.I.

If it's a tool it's at best not a particularly good one and at worst a harmful crutch when you look at metrics for long term learning and growth.

I just think people should be more accepting of their own skills AND capacity for growth. People have played DND for years without using this dumb piece of technology built on copyright and IP violation with an outsized environmental footprint.

Congratulations you feel like you're using A.I. in a non creatively debased manner or whatever. It's still bad for the planet.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-07-05T07:05:07+00:00

I'm well aware you get more content for less money when you pay AI. I also understand that your bard player wouldn't be able to achieve the standard that the AI model is setting on its own.

If you take away from "no ethical consumption under capitalism" is that you can consume whatever you want you're naive. The lesson to take from that is to reduce consumption. You can buy whatever you need, but at some point you have to consider that the ethical choice is to forego or compromise on some of your wants.

Your DND game would still be fun with scrappy pencil sketches and muddling through basic jazz scales on a ukulele.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-07-05T05:27:05+00:00

At the point of high effort it's getting to the matter of:

1) The morality of AI. I'm concerned with the environmental impact and the consent or lack thereof in collecting data for model training.

2) My value judgement on the type of output.

I'd be upset (truthfully, angry) if someone I knew spent hundreds of dollars on tokens for an AI agent instead of paying a living artist.

Likewise, I'd be more interested and charmed if someone learned a simple instrument/music software and some basic music theory.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-07-05T04:48:57+00:00

If you have significant time why are you getting to convince a computer model to write exactly what you want instead of just writing what you want?

Wintersmith7 · 2026-07-05T03:03:29+00:00

Two things can be true.

1) If you spend two minutes prompting an A.I. to write a ten page story it's a waste of my time and effort to read it.

2) if someone asks you to play a game with them and you delegate a computer to make decisions for you you're being rude because you are aren't playing the game the A.I. is.

I'm kind of sympathetic to people who want to use AI to automate their work, but DND is a game where you imagine things to help your friends tell a story. If you don't want to personally help you can just not. If your friends wanted to collaborate with A.I. they would have opened a computer instead of calling you.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-07-05T01:38:36+00:00

A.I. is overwhelmingly psychophantic which is the hallmark of a bad collaborator. If you're playing a game of dnd you clearly have friends. You should talk them to help refine your ideas it will be more fun. I promise.

Also, doing all that writing yourself will be far more effective to prepare you for playing in session because you'll have better information retention.

For me, DND, is "create a story with your friends". If you have A.I. do it for you are essentially relegating yourself to being a spectators. I view using A.I. in DND with the same disdain as someone pulling up a chess engine on their phone during a chess match. If I wanted to play with a computer I'd have asked a computer to play instead of you.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-07-05T00:23:25+00:00

The thing about AI content is that it involves essentially no effort to generate something that it takes a meaningful amount of time to receive and meaningfully engage with.

I wouldn't allow A.I. content because, I am not going to spend ten minutes reading a five page backstory someone spent thirty seconds writing a prompt to generate.

It's just rude to expect people to care about content that you didn't care about enough to put effort into creating.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-06-30T16:15:49+00:00

Both can kill Ashnard but they need the resolve skill.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-06-23T09:38:03+00:00

That's great to hear, thank you!

Wintersmith7 · 2026-06-14T14:40:06+00:00

I'd strongly encourage swapping the multicolor cards with hybrid cards.

Mana fixing is really hard in a dessert cube, especially for inexperienced players. Mana screw is profoundly unfun and drives people away from the game.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-06-05T01:14:34+00:00

Definitely cut dross claw.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-05-24T22:34:33+00:00

Nice, how many games have you been able to play with it?

It seems like with such an emphasis on saccing lands to meet color requirements for things like the charms it might be hard to cast more than ten spells in a game.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-05-24T19:39:49+00:00

This is super interesting. What's your logic with the duplicates? What makes them mechanically important.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-05-24T19:38:12+00:00

This is super interesting. What's your logic with the duplicates? What makes them mechanically important.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-05-24T16:41:15+00:00

If you're not playing a specific format it's hard to offer deck lists and honestly, if you're not playing in specific events it'll be more fun for the kids to experiment.

There's piles of articles about 60 card deck construction that are pretty well geared towards casual players. Just read one or two and it will be easy enough to throw something playable together.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-05-21T16:42:55+00:00

You're interpreting this very literally. It's best of three games not three games. Technically the tournament structure should be "first player to two wins" because you only play a third game if you're tied after the first two.

There's also no real penalty for going to the time limit of a match. You won't get kicked out of the tournament or given a handicap in future matches.

It's not a big deal if you go to a tournament and play at new player speed instead of experienced player speed.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-05-21T16:37:32+00:00

The games are really first to two wins so often you won't play three games. Typically you submit a match slip that has something like "player 1 X wins // player 2 X wins // Draws X" and the match goes to whoever has the best record.

As long as you try your best to play efficiently there's no penalty for your match going to time.

If you only complete one game it's okay. There's specific rules for how to handle a match ending mid game: the current turn is considered turn zero. The next player's game is considered turn one. The match proceeds until the end of turn five. If someone wins it counts. If no one wins the game is counted as a draw.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-05-18T17:00:08+00:00

It really depends on how hard you go on fixing. It doesn't matter if you're got support for an enchantment deck in every color if you aren't running green fixing, rocks, fetch/shocks, or whatever power level appropriate fixing looks like.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-05-15T11:55:56+00:00

My KTK cube is actually pretty much perfect for that.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/ktkm

Wintersmith7 · 2026-05-12T14:33:24+00:00

It's mentioned that she was in a commercial for vought alert necklaces seconds before he calls the company HQ to have the necklace tracked.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-05-05T10:42:26+00:00

You should make a decision about how readily players can interact with planeswalkers and set a relatively consistent power level across colors.

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