Audio EXP Podcast: #234 – Theories on WotC, D&D and AI

Welcome home.

This is Audio EXP for the 16th of March, and the episode title is “Theories on WotC, D&D and AI” 

[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #234]

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LunarShadow Designs won the March vote, and I’m mid-Q&A with Craig so sit tight! 

I thought I’d seen Wizards of the Coast advertising Pathfinder this week. What happened was D&D Beyond announced a Dungeons & Dragons partnership with StartPlaying. It included a referral link to get $10 off.

StartPlaying is a site that connects you with a professional GM. This service costs money, and your cash goes to StartPlaying, but mainly to the GM.

If StartPlaying has grown big enough to attract Wizards of the Coast’s attention, then it means it’s cracked the chicken-and-egg puzzle of looking for group site faces; no one uses them until enough people use them.

The referral link means both WotC and StartPlaying can see how many new gamers take up the system because of this D&D Beyond recommendation.

I wrote a piece on the deal, in part inspired by StartPlaying continuing to facilitate Pathfinder and others but also because of what I think we can infer from WotC’s strategy.

A big strength D&D has over rivals is that despite the challenges of getting a regular tabletop game, it’s far easier to get a Dungeons & Dragons game. People know it, people want to play it, and that chicken-and-egg critical mass has been achieved.

In this sense, D&D has more to lose than gain for looking for group sites to take off.

However, if no one can get a game, the hobby will wither, and Wizards of the Coast will lose out. I think this is why Wizards have plugged StartPlaying, that and a financial cut of the pie. Right now, Wizards don’t make money when people play D&D; they only make money when people buy D&D.

The virtual tabletop they’re working on, currently in pre-release and called Maps, might change that.

Roll20 has a looking for group marketplace, but if WotC are dealing with StartPlaying, then we might guess they’ve not been working on looking for group functionality of their own. That feels a bit like an oversight to me. Of course, they could be testing the waters, and could easily buy StartPlaying.

It’s worth noting that StartPlaying rather assumes you’re in North America and are looking to play D&D online. It’s no good if you’re looking for a game of Delta Green in Scotland.

Then I read an interview with Hasbro and former D&D boss Chris Cocks in Venture Beat. In it; he’s pro-AI.

Many people didn’t like that. However, I think there’s a good chunk of gamers who imagine this will be about Wizards of the Coast using generative AI to lower the cost of art.

It might be a bit of that but at WotC’s scale the art costs aren’t as large a percentage of the budget as, say, a new publisher on Itch.

I think WotC, and this is pure speculation, is more interested in using AI to do two things;

• For D&D computer games.
• For digital D&D that uses AI to re-create the traditional TTRPG experience – especially for solo players looking for a DM.

In the article, Chris says;

We’re doing some stuff around AI that’s really interesting. As I said earlier, we’re trying to do a new AI product experiment once every two to three months. That’s tending to be more game-focused for us, a little more gamified. We’re trying to keep it toward older audiences, to make sure all the content is appropriate.

Then, later,

You’ll see more of how we’re thinking about how we can integrate AI, how we can integrate digital with physical gaming over time.

If there’s a subscription model, an AI that’s read all the back catalogue of books, or, here’s this for scandal, PDFs from other publishers and can create adventures and be NPCs, then that might lure people in.

If that sounds like sci-fi then what about a transmedia AI that helps coordinate D&D tabletop games, perhaps even by listening in, with an online D&D computer game. You could have group scenes from the tabletop and then go to your computer and adventure through the back history of the druid you just rolled up.

And, just to layer on more hypothesis, if WotC was putting human face-to-face ahead of digital D&D then why wouldn’t their VTT have a looking for group marketplace?

The mainstream press—well, the big tabletop titles anyway—was all up about a D&D giant killer this week, too. Critical Role released Daggerheat.

Actually, Darrington Press opened Daggerheart up for playtesting.

Darrington Press is Crit Role’s publishing brand, except that it’s hugely overshadowed by Critical Role as a brand. I suspect that’s low on their list of tactical problems, though.

I suspect carving out market share is their main focus. That’s not easy to do. However, D&D upset people enough with the OGL drama to shake the market share need, D&D 2024 could do it again, any VTT or AI drama might also be a wobble.

Notably, D&D can’t go up. It can only maintain the status quo, and that’s a challenge because it means ensuring people are hot on the game. I suspect WotC loses more money to people stopping RPGs altogether than by players changing rule systems.

To that end, challengers like Daggerheart and Broken Weave, the fantasy from Cubicle 7 that also launched this week, might help D&D if they help grow the overall size and freshness of the market.

Okay, enough shop talk. Let’s talk about some movies. Bronwen is one of many people who are cynical about The Crow reboot.

The trailer is out, and you can watch it on the blog, links in the show notes.

The Brandon Lee Crow is 30 years old, or thereabouts. I don’t want a reboot of the Crow to feel like a 30 year old movie. Godzilla Minus One didn’t feel like an old movie but it captured the retro-feel of Godzilla in new ways. Goths are back, I see that on Tiktok, but they’ve evolved and are different. The new Crow must appeal to a new generation, it isn’t a sequel and I think therefore owes little to the original movie.

Most people disagree with me.

Except, I’ve watched the trailer, and I think it gives us the whole plotline and the best bits of the movie. I don’t see why I need to invest two or so hours any more.

In contrast, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a sequel. Bronwen has Michael Keaton raving about it, predicting fans will love it.

And I’m seeing a lot of hope and enthusiasm. Me? I’m worried. This isn’t a reboot. This needs to be the same and different. This needs to be nostalgic and novel.

That’s a hard challenge.

A third find, not a movie, is an easy thing to agree on. The LEGO Batman set of the animated series looks great.

It’s LEGO meets wall art!

Now, here are some bundles for our outro and first up, there’s Cubicle 7’s Warhammer: The Enemy Within & More on Humble. Core and starter WFRP rules are so well worth checking out.

Another, and this time in Geek Native’s policy of giving any affiliate cash back to the cause, is Owen KC Stephens is RAD bundle. There’s over $1K worth of downloads for less than $30 available to raise money for an RPG designer who’s fighting cancer with lasers because chemo didn’t work.

On that note, if our new AI overlords allow us, I’ll see you next week.