It is not without irony that even a game like ‘Dungeons & Dragons’, based solely on imagination and venturing into fantastical worlds, battling strange creatures, and solving puzzles set by a more or less challenging dungeon master, has fallen into the clutches of AI. Over the months, what began as a fun aid for artists has turned into an anti-creative nightmare, a haven for those who, instead of improving their style or learning to draw, have opted for a computer to do it for them.
A hellish world
It turns out that in the latest book of the franchise, published by Wizards of the Coast, several images generated by artificial intelligence have made their way. ‘Bigby presents: Glory of the Giants’ was released digitally on August 1st, and the physical version will be released on the 15th. The book features new giant enemies, revised rules, spells, and completely new ways to create a character.
The issue arose when Ilya Shkipin, the artist of the book in question, stated, following a controversy on Twitter over the use of AI, that he indeed used it to refine some details, although the majority of the art was painted digitally. Interestingly, Shkipin has been illustrating for various D&D books for ten years and had never encountered any issues like this before.
Wizards of the Coast has quickly moved to safeguard the (more or less) good reputation of their flagship brand by stating that they will review their process and update the guidelines for artists to “make it clear that they should avoid using artificial intelligence art generation as part of their creative process in D&D.” Apparently, they were not aware of what was happening, and after speaking with Shkipin, they have ensured that he will not use AI in the future, leaving this as an anomaly. At least for now.
This isn’t the first time that AI has made a strong entry into the world of tabletop games, nor is it the first negative reaction from the community. Games like ‘Pathfinder’ and ‘Starfinder,’ for instance, made a promise that none of their artists would use AI by contract. On the other side are games like ‘Yavalath,’ created from scratch by a generative AI. Only time will tell who was right.
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