D&D Beyond & AI Dungeon Masters

I Can't Let You Do That, Dave.

Oh lordy, the hits just keep coming. Over on YouTube, several channels are reporting via Twitter leaks from within Wizards of the Coast that once again Hasbro’s plan for D&D Beyond goes (ironically enough) beyond anything we could’ve imagined.

Now, I admit I quite easily get caught up in the fervor and outrage of YouTube clickbait titles and boy are there plenty of those when it comes to this information. The big thing blowing everyone’s mind is games run by Artificial Intelligence, thus eliminating the need for a DM. I mean, this makes total sense from an executive’s point of view. They’re effectively turning a tabletop roleplaying game into an MMO. Hasbro has all but admitted that micro-transactions are the plan, so why would they not look for a way to have an A.I. run the game? For someone who doesn’t play D&D and only understands it, at best, as a video game without the video part this seems natural and even desired. Now, call me crazy but I think this is an excellent idea.

Remember when D&D 4e came out and they targeted the MMO player market to whom they’d been steadily losing customers to in the mid-2000s? When they basically tried to make an MMO with dice and paper? What happened? Everyone I know said “This is an MMO with dice and paper. I’m gonna go play Pathfinder.”

And they did.

So, let them make D&D Beyond into what is functionally a closed MMO with 4-6 players in the same game at a time. Back in my day did the same thing with Baldur’s Gate at LAN parties. It was cool, it was fun, but it wasn’t D&D. It wasn’t a real roleplaying game. It might be an enjoyable experience for a lot of people, but most tabletop gamers I know have very little interest in it beyond the novelty factor.

So what we’ll have if this is the direction they go is two factions: D&D players and tabletop RPG gamers. Both might have fun. Both might come from the same roots. Both might enjoy the experience provided to them by their chosen medium. But an A.I. can never provide the dynamic, personal experience of an in person GM running a game for real people, at a real table, and able to react with human pathos.

The Dungeons and Dragons brand really is going “Beyond.” They’re going beyond roleplaying games. They’re leaving them behind. And I say let them. Let them carve out this new market they think will follow them into a world of micro-transactions and DM-less RPGs. Heck, for all I know quite a few people might. But I think this is a good, if painful in the short term, thing for tabletop roleplaying games. Because once we’re past this OGL 1.0a vs. OGL 1.1/OGL 2.0 thing, no matter how it plays out I think Hasbro will leave roleplaying gamers alone. We’re not worth their time because we don’t have enough to offer their bottom line.

Roll for Initiative, Dave.

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