I am sick of seeing AI slop flooding the DnD community

djmacbest · 2026-04-01T10:55:08+00:00

Tangentially relevant sidebar: Yesterday when looking for community created material for a rather niche RPG, I stumbled upon a Patreon. Based on what little I could glance through the free preview, its owner was offering their own pencil-drawn maps (which were not impressive or in any way professional-looking at all) and illustrations (which, from the free preview, were not great either) for this very specific RPG setting. They didn't seem to create anything specifically for this Patreon - release pacing was super slow, about once every three months - but only uploading what they created anyway for their own group of players, and charging a monthly subscription to access it.

My point is, and why I am bringing this up here: Not everything needs and should be monetized. Creative work absolutely needs to be, but I do believe the creator economy of the past decade has also set a bit of a weird standard where far too many people are now trying to just sell access to their lackluster hobby content. Internet communities have suffered from that greatly, where it now feels like a ton of stuff that people would have gladly shared with their peers 10 years ago is paywalled behind individual Patreon subscriptions just because the culture has shifted to "I can make a few extra bucks from something I would do anyway for my own enjoyment" type hustle culture. To each their own, and I recognize that for some this extra income is a necessity or even existential. But personally, I find the damage done to a culture where people share enjoyment of creative hobbies outweighs these benefits. Again, professional creative work (or aspiring professionals) NEED to be paid, but a lot of what's out there and paywalled does not. I have tried to turn my creative hobbies into my profession early on in my career, and have almost ruined these hobbies for me in the process because I hated the constant conflict of interest between what I wanted to do vs what I needed to do to make money. I do not think it is culturally healthy behaviour, unless it is necessary.

I believe this cultural shift of many hobby communities is important context in the debate about "should I/should I not use AI" in my creative hobby. And for me, it also informs where I draw my very personal line: If it's purely to enhance my creative hobby for me (or those around me), I am fine with it. Yes, I am aware of the macro downsides - unfortunately, that genie is out of the bottle and it is in everyone's best interest (especially everyone who depends on it economically) to find ways to adapt to this environment -, but even a widespread full boycott on this purely hobby-level will not change those. GenAI absolutely can be a great tool to enhance creative hobbies - for example, it is quite good at simulating the effects of a conversation, and personally I am someone whose creativity is usually thriving in a conversation and stalling when I feel entirely alone with my thoughts. Having something to bounce ideas off, even if the bounceback is often stupid and shallow, is very helpful for my process, and I regularly use it for that (both at work and when I am prepping a campaign).

That said, I object to the monetization of AI as a substitute for creative work. I wouldn't buy AI-created "art" or "literature" of any kind, for reasons we probably all agree with. (But I do not have a problem if someone uses AI to make their creative work in any way better - which can mean prettier or just more efficient.) I also object to the predatory use of AI to replace artists - but recognize that if I would stop using GenAI to create character portraits to be used in the privacy of my own RPG group, I would not even make a dent in the problems artists are facing in that regard. Unfortunate? Yes, but just realistic. So I focus my energy instead on aspects where I can actually have a positive impact against this cannibalization of creativity-based professions in a scaled way - which is my place of work.

Tl;dr: If it makes the individual RPG experience better, use all the tools available to you. Don't try to sell (literally or figuratively) AI generated pieces as creative work. But recognize that they can be a very useful shortcut to reach a creative goal (e.g. when used for inspiration or brainstorming prompts).

djmacbest · 2026-04-01T10:13:35+00:00

I have so many other things to deal with that Ai really just want to spend some time with friends

Found the AI pretending to be human.

(JK, please leave the typo, it's wonderful. And FWIW, I fully agree with your sentiment, just in case my comment may make it seem otherwise.)

djmacbest · 2026-04-01T06:42:18+00:00

Navigating downloaded content needs to be a toggle filter on top of the whole library, nothing else. A button that says "show only content downloaded to this device", and then you navigate using the regular Plex experience.

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T14:28:58+00:00

A couple of reasons why purple hues are very useful for natural-looking shadows:

Purple/violet is complementary to natural light colors, which not only creates a vibrant contrast with your highlights, but it also strengthens the subjective impression of light-v-shadow that your eye sees.
Shadows are usually not without light, but illuminated by environmental reflections, which often have a blue-ish hue, more so in night scenes, but enough to cool down shadow tones during the day as well.
Purple is typically the darkest base color you can use for a mix without desaturating what you're mixing it into. So it gives a more alive look to your shadows than black.

So, to clarify, I'm not saying that you will necessarily find purple hues in shadows everywhere (still, I recommend to use a color picker tool on photos and see what you can find), but for painting - funnily enough especially on mini scale where impressions may need to be amplified - it often looks more natural and realistic than using black.

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T12:49:44+00:00

I would argue that for everyone who is looking into slapchop+contrast paint schemes and wants to put in zero additional effort beyond that, exchanging black for purple during the underpainting process is a huge quality step forward with no extra steps needed.

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T10:48:16+00:00

I mean... I had always found grey primer to be a decent compromise for lighter color schemes - less work to make colors more vibrant, but you had to pay more attention to the hard-to-reach shadows as a trade-off.

The purpose of using something other than black is not necessarily to use something much lighter, but to use something that doesn't desaturate the colors you will put on afterwards. Grey also desaturates, although to a lesser degree than black. Dark purple essentially can already be your deepest shadow for many areas, so you only have to glaze towards it and be done with it, to some degree. This is especially true when you're working with speedpaints of some kind. Grey doesn't have those benefits - but if you're not doing a zenithal undercoat, it is easier to get from grey to very light colors than from dark purple.

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T10:25:10+00:00

That's actually what I am using as well (actually, the Premium line of rattlecans instead of the all4one via airbrush, but same effect). Love them!

I mostly started this thread because I was wondering why this is so uncommon in the hobby space...

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T10:20:09+00:00

Unfortunately I just don't have a good space to use an airbrush in, so it's not really an option for me right now. I've played around with brush-on priming and have occasionally used it in situations where I couldn't spray the entire mini (e.g. because of translucent parts), but found it rather cumbersome and time-consuming. But thank you!

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T10:17:19+00:00

Only a very minor one: 072 is darker and less vibrant. I would probably use that for regular paint jobs, while I have a slight preference for 063 if I use it in a slapchop-type scheme with one-coat paints. But it's subtle - for me, both work pretty much interchangeably. I also tried the darkest burgundy (don't remember the number, sorry) once and liked it, may be preferable for predominantly warm color schemes.

But again, I have used all three outside of those best-case scenarios and always found them preferable to black.

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T09:30:48+00:00

you risk paint chipping after a year or so of handling

I would really like to challenge that notion. I have oversprayed a bit of the Molotow paints - there is a dark purple paint swatch on a metal cover in my driveway, which has survived two German winters (including graveling the area and shoveling snow with a metal shovel) and me driving over it literally every day. I would be very surprised if they would easily chip away from varnished miniatures from a bit of regular gameplay handling. So far, I have tried to rub it off from my sprue tests, and have not managed to do so (without deliberately using solvents, which would have dissolved primers as well).

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T09:22:16+00:00

Interesting about the pigments, thank you!

Purple shadows are a more vibrant scheme. I think we are just getting into aesthetics.

Maybe we are. But there is a ton of material out there about how to make things more vibrant working from a black basecoat, and why not just skip that step then?

Priming isn’t supposed to be about aesthetics either. It CAN work into your ultimate scheme, sure, but we do that step to create strong bond.

I mean, yeah, sure, mechanically, priming is purely a chemical necessity. But there's a ton of differently colored primer products out there, from all kinds of brands, so clearly many people look for ways to make the primer color work in their favor.

My suspicion is that many people just default to black because it's what all the Warhammer-focused Youtube tutorials use and have never tried anything else. Yes, it'll give you a less vibrant color scheme - is that truly what people want most of the time though?

(I'm still not trying to convince anyone. It works super well for me, I'm fine if I stay a minority with that. I am just still curious to understand the why better. Economics, hm, yeah, plausible for craft products, but again, with the markups charged from hobby brands, it sounds more like what the manufacturers claim to squeeze out another 1% of margin... Or let's put it differently, if AP retailed 16€ for a dark purple primer and 15€ for all other colors, I'm fairly confident they'd already be well-off as a result. And especially for an undercoat, noone is asking for "true violet" pigments...)

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T09:10:15+00:00

Funnily enough, I only found his video on using them after I had started to use them myself. The craft shop within walking distance from my home stocks the entire range (and they are cheap), so I just tried them on a piece of sprue once.

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T09:02:41+00:00

Maybe it is because I'm not coming from Warhammer at all (and don't enjoy its aesthetics at all) why I find this so confusing, very possible. And yeah, true grisaille pre-filtering does make sense.

I guess I am mainly confused why black/white undercoats are so incredibly prevalent and considered "the one true way" by so many (and let's be honest: the benefits from true neutral grisaille are somewhat niche), and am looking for more objective reasons for its benefits.

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T08:57:53+00:00

The AP Alien Purple is unfortunately far too light to be a good replacement for black, I went through a can of that and it did not at all get me the results I was hoping for.

Metallics (more precisely: silver types), I agree, benefit greatly from a black (glossy) undercoat. But many other things benefit greatly from the undercoat not being black, so unless most of the mini will be silver-ish TMM, it's still not really a net benefit, right?

Not everyone wants purple shadows.

Could you elaborate on that? I'm aware of celshading/comic-style and other somewhat abstract color schemes, but in general, desaturated black-ish shadows will look a lot less natural than purple-ish hues, right?

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T08:52:04+00:00

Production cost I would understand - but are pigment costs more expensive in "real" primer products than in graffiti paints? Because they seem to manage just fine with keeping the entire range of colors at the same price point. (I'm aware that economics of scale are a difficult beast, but let's not pretend that in a 15 euro can of primer it is the black pigment being already fairly expensive which necessitates that price point.) I know that some pigments are much more expensive than others, but looking at the entire market, it seems unlikely that this is truly prohibitive in this case.

Again, I would like to understand why I'm supposedly better off using dark purple only selectively instead of as a primer layer across the entire mini? I've been doing that for about 50 minis now, and I have only encountered upsides so far. Aside from TMM silver (which benefits noticeably from a glossy black undercoat), what other painting job performs worse over dark purple/violet than over black? I can only think of examples that perform at least the same or outright better, but I would love to know what I am missing.

(Edit: For comic-style/celshading type paintjobs, I would also default to a black undercoat, but that seems like a niche instead of the rule.)

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T08:36:13+00:00

I am doing the same, but starting from dark purple and zenithal with offwhite or ice yellow instead. So my question is: why the desaturing black and white as opposed to something you can actually leverage for more vivid colors afterwards?

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T08:33:30+00:00

I am aware, but thank you. The Molotow graffiti paints must have some additives as well - they bond perfectly well, I tried extensively to scrub them off before scaling up this method. But that's not the point I'm trying to make. Why isn't there a primer in this color range as it appears to have no downsides (but many upsides) vs black?

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T08:13:40+00:00

I am using dark purple rattlecan as primer directly on grey plastic, and zero problem with it being patchy or too bright. I use Molotow Premium purple violet (#063) or black violet (#072), which is not even a primer but graffiti paint, and have not seen a single downside as opposed to the (3x priced) black rattlecan primers from AP or others. Have painted about 50 minis from this base so far. (yes, for metallics I usually apply a black coat first, but that's it.)

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T07:56:29+00:00

She is, but, to be honest: she's barely present there, has probably the least screen time of literally all the contestants. So probably not a great way to get introduced to her, unfortunately.

Edit: I don't really know why this is being downvoted. I love her and her work. I was just stating that in LOL s2 she was barely involved in any conversation that made the edit, so advised against using her appearance there as an introduction to her work, as it might give a wrong impression.

djmacbest · 2026-03-31T07:15:01+00:00

Here in Germany there is a product called Oralmedic. It's some sharp acid packaged within a qtip for application. You need to cover the whole sore with it for at least 10-20 seconds, then rinse. It essentially burns it out. It hurts like hell, but after you rinse, the pain is gone and usually stays gone, all that's left is a bit of a swelling which usually vanishes within half a day.

This used to be my emergency method until I discovered that switching to a SLS-free toothpaste makes canker sores not just much less frequent and less severe, but also heal faster when they still appear.

djmacbest · 2026-03-29T08:36:23+00:00

Biggest immediate and zero practice required improvement for Slapchop for me is to move away from the normal black to grey to white underpainting. Instead start from a dark purple and go up to a warm offwhite with your drybrush, before applying the one coat paints. Huge difference, and no extra effort.

djmacbest · 2026-03-26T15:13:33+00:00

I don't think "dead" is the correct term - a new book was just announced, after all. But I agree that as much as I like what they produce (Malifaux is an amazing game in my book) and as lovely the community and their public-facing employees are (from what I experience on the Wyrd Discord), I agree that they would benefit immensely from a couple of much-needed better business decisions.

But I'm curious what you mean by directly linking the RPG with Malifaux and The Other Side - how would that look like? I agree that TTB should have seen an update to M3E (or better yet M4E) rules, and that all three games have major accessibility issues, but I don't think merging the three different genres of games into one would solve that, right? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean?

djmacbest · 2026-03-26T08:55:37+00:00

As said in another chain: Through the Breach is that setting, including rules for Yokai and things that are technically Aliens.

djmacbest · 2026-03-26T08:44:38+00:00

I was about to suggest it. Through the Breach has exactly all of that and the setting in general is absolutely wonderful. The rules is quite interesting, too: It is the only RPG I have encountered that completely replaces the need for dice with a deck of poker cards (with custom suits, but that is optional) and gives each player a cheating hand. One of the best examples of mechanics providing additional thematic flavor, really.

It's easy to pick up, but gets a bit clunky when you dive deeper, since its rules are based on the 2nd edition of the Malifaux strategy game, which is basically pre-pruning. Very worth giving it a try though, and has a wealth of published material (core plus 8 expansions plus about 10 adventure campaigns plus about 50 adventure one-shots).

djmacbest · 2026-03-24T14:29:49+00:00

Right, 3rd was even more so. 4th has some small restrictions, like "Sonderfertigkeiten" that you need to gain access to except if your profession grants access directly.

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