The Culture: The Black Lodge Gets It About AI

Black Lodge Games had one of the more sensible takes on AI.

I will not be so kind: it's happening and there's sweet fuck-all you can do about it but adapt.

"I won't buy stuff that uses it."

Yes, you will. There is no incentive to disclose using it other than to flex, so they're just going to do it regardless of what PR says- yes, they can and will lie to your face about it. It's already getting difficult to notice it when done at all competently, and it's only going to get better; soon you won't notice at all if it's outside your area of expertise, and not long thereafter you won't notice within it.

The commercial incentive to use it, to master it, and to apply it wherever it cuts costs far outweigh all the chimping against it can manage. That is why objectors will lose.

You will accept it. Why? Ultimately, because you won't have a choice; the people who produce the things you want to buy are all going to adopt it because if they don't they will lose to those that do and get crushed. At least it won't be like all the restaurants buying from the same supplier (if you ever worked in one, or for a fast food chain, you know).

"I won't use it!"

Yes, you will, or you won't be employable or be viable in business. You will be crushed by those that do EVERY SINGLE TIME! You no longer have to choose between Fast, Cheap, and Good; you can get all three now, and because you can get all you had better deliver all three OR IT'S YOUR ASS!

"But we can-"

There will be no government regulation that matters; those stupid enough to do so will prompt capital flight to those that don't and (say it with me now) end up crushing the stupid governments EVERY SINGLE TIME!

You will buy AI-made things. You will hire AI-provided services. You will use it in your own work, be it as a wagie or hustling for yourself. This is the new normal, and you will adjust or you will be crushed by those that do.

That's how things will work out, as they did last time there was a major shakeup with the widespread adoption of PCs in the office and then the rise of the Internet before that, and anyone that claims otherwise (and appears to be sustaining themselves) is actually getting their money elsewhere and doing this as an expensive hobby to farm clout or status-signal- like all those bookstores that are funded by Daddy's or Hubby's real jobs.

AI threatens only the shit-tier "talents". That so many in Tabletop are shrieking about AI tells you all you need to know about their real worth, and I can't wait for them to all either bend the knee or shut down.

The Business: GW's Latest Legal Fuckery (& More)

Arch talks about G-Dubs' latest fuckery.

This, as Arch notes, is not the first time that GW did this.

This is also, as Arch notes, not just GW doing this.

This is part of a trend by corpos using lawfare to shut down anything at all looking askance at them. We're not even close to where Axanar was when Paramount nuked them from orbit; this is a passing resemblance in one blink-and-you-miss-it shot in a trailer we're talking about.

Yes, GW is that petty; remember the lawsuit over "Space Marine" that ended up going MCA Hoegarth's way, forcing GW to asspull renames because they couldn't lawfare others into not using "Space Marine" or "Imperial Guard" anymore? We're on that level of petty here, and others (e.g. Trench Crusade) are now following suit.

Not that GW was done there. Pat has more.

GW flubs a release. Tuesday.

That's not the issue (but it is an issue).

The issue is refusing to fix a problem that GW is responsible for, knowing full well that the buyers lack the means to enforce their rights so they can just screw the customer even harder while capitalizing on the success of a tie-in product in order to buoy revenue during Yet Another Fucking Edition Turnover.

Chimping out is in order here.

No, not unhinged ranting. I mean the effective kind; if Pat were to have included links to legal authorities able to coerce corrective action out of GW, that would be effective chimping.

This is a Consumer Rights issue. The Yookay, occupied and deliberately dysfunctional as it is, still has those things and those agencies- use them. You're not whining about Pakis and rapists, so they may actually do something about it. Here in the US, this is a Federal agency: The Federal Trade Commission. Drop them a line, with all the information they ask for and more, and do so in massive numbers (so yeah, spread that link around). The FTC is SLOW, but when it hits it does so like a colony drop; GW can't ignore the damage.

Oh, and if you GW people on YT want a hint: see that above paragraph? Cut a video; show the link(s), and have a template ready to copy/paste for the complaint. Call To Action, friction minimized, Great Success.

The Culture: Tex PlaysTraveller?

Oh no. Black Pants Legion plays Traveller. This is going to be terrible and hilarious.

Oh, even better. This is the folks who played the game attempting to recap a lost podcast recording.

Sit back, enjoy the DVD Commentary Track to a movie that no longer exists, and try not to have coffee or soda going through your nose.

Then listen to the first full episode.

The Culture: Pilum Press Presents "Prizes: Pilum New Voices No. 4"

Frens at Pilum Press have a project up at IndieGoGo. They talked about this on Alexandru Constantin's podcast, Black Ibis Social Club.

Goal is $2K, with about 20-some days to go as of this post. Check it out.

The Business: Can The Only Game That Matters Be A Billion-Dollar Brand?

Last Wednesday, Roll For Combat again asks the question.

TLDR: Not as it is now.

The irony is that Wizards Of The Coast knows what it would take to make it happen, flubbed that transition once, but because there is no competition within the niche WOTC recovered and are going to try again. The idea is simple, and the tech is now present to allow for it: bot-controlled (agentic AI) players to fill out a table. As we already having them running household appliances, directly contacting each other, and other such functionality playing The Only Game That Matters (and communicating with others doing so) is not impossible- and given the success of Claude Code, it is now probable.

You better believe that conversation's going on in Seattle.

For that matter, agentic online Magic players are also possible and have been for a while.

The route out of the current rut is to remove the friction that requiring other human players to play imposes. For any tabletop game, having bots play other characters and/or run the game is no longer impossible or improbable; it's now probable, and increasingly doable. For WOTC, that is well within their capabilies now that Claude Code exists if senior management gives the go-ahead and clears the way for implementation within Beyond.

The test case would be to implement agentic players for Magic. They look like players, act like players, have unique decks, etc. because, for all intents and purposes, they ARE players.

If someone really wanted to test it, be outside the company and build that agent; get it an account and let it go to work playing the game. Document the process. Keep at it (if starting now) until end of Q2 this year in September; present in Q3, and propose making agentic D&D players in Q4 in Beyond for implementation in 2027.

This is such an obvious move that I will be disappointed if it doesn't happen.

Yes, it is that obvious- so obvious that your typical MBA bro can see it, and they aren't known for being particularly cunning, bright, or competent.

Do that--remove that friction--and you make D&D into a billion-dollar brand by 2030 because human players can now play when they want, how they want, for as long as they want, and they can do so from anywhere via Beyond. It is that friction that is keeping Normies from mass adoption, and anyone wanting billion-dollar brand status must have all the Normiebux, so yeet that friction and grab that bag.

This is how Conventional Play can endure, but only WOTC can do it. Everyone else cannot; they will collapse, go non-commercial, or admit defeat and reform back to being a Real Game.

The Business: Nixxiom Demonstrates Why Network Effects Rule All

In the wake of Ashes of Creation's collapse, we get several takes. Nix gets it: Network Effects trumps all.

Josh Stryfe Hayes explained this (again, in the MMO context) previously.

And, as Preach showed, Blizzard gets that the Network Effect is real- and they seek to capture that utility within its own brand bubble.

Tabletop works the same way.

This is Network Effects in action. This is how and why There Is No Alternative to The Only Game That Matters.

All the folks who quit WOW inevitably return to it; Preach did, Zepla (FF14's Bunny Queen) returned, I quit and came back, everyone does this. The same is true of D&D, and like Blizzard, Wizards of the Coast captures its own disaffected by making older editions legally available thus severely inhibiting attempts to use them to compete from within its own Network Effect. (Not that they don't try; also, private WOW servers exist- same concept, different media.)

The reality is that, due to the very nature of the medium, it is inevitable that it collapses on the dominant Network Effect. What already exists within Roblox comes for ALL of them in due course: one dominant player, within which users generate what they want with the tools at hand.

With a proper game, that's not a problem. That's not the case with most crap on the shelves.

Stop wasting your time and money. Just Play D&D.

The Culture: Visualizing The Old Material Better & Making New Stuff Fit

Thanks to Grok, illustrating 1st Edition in forms most people have no qualms with is easier than ever. Your Playable Races, for example.

That's arranged by height: Halfling, Gnome, Dwarf, Elf, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Human.

Displacer Beast took some work, but this is what I've gotten so far.

Grok works off natural language, for the most part, but it is still lacking comprehension of archaic or highly-specialized words and phrases. "Horney" is one of them, which is why the Displacer Beast took several iterations as I had to find substitute words or phrasing to get the desired effect.

Grok also works off weights; earlier elements get more weight, so you need to put the important stuff up front. This includes any art style parameters. The reason I get Le Animu Images is because I state "1990s OVA Style (Record of Lodoss War + early Berserk Golden Age)" up front; with a Stylize weight on the back end ("--stylize 350") to further refine the range. Sometimes I get something like Lodoss, sometimes like Berserk, and sometimes like other stuff (e.g. Yu Yu Hakusho, Vampire Hunter D).

Yes, this means that if I wanted something more like Frank Frazetta, Brian Snoddy, or Alan Lee, I could get it easily. I don't; I want the Lodoss style because that's broadly appealing to most current, former, and (especially) prospective players today.

Like it or not, far too many people run off vibes; change the art style, change the trade dress, and you change the vibe- and the vibe attracts the audience you want. What keeps them is the experience of play coupled with the ease of playing: rules and Network Effects.

Which means that consistent addition of new stuff to play with is easy to present. Take the Daevites from the SCP Wiki. First I got a consistent description, and then I fed it through Grok. Behold.

I'll be writing Daevites up for AD&D1e later this month and publishing them at the Clubhouse.

It is now that easy for one man to generate and publish playable content. There is no need for people to consume Endless Product Slop anymore.