Wheel of Time MUD

Hey all,

We have issues related to communicating objectives and intentions, and we wanted to clarify those while opening a conversation about roleplay. In our mind, roleplay drives the content of the game. Over the next month, we'll make a few posts related to some of our thoughts and put them on the board to facilitate an open dialogue.

We've noticed an increase in the use of AI-generated content for roleplay posts. This has shown up on character bios, requests for apprenticeship, and roleplay stories. While these tools can be helpful, they often produce a surface-level content summary that lacks the depth and nuance of personally crafted posts. Since we are the ones who read them (and they are posted for rpqp), it can painful to read them and worse to scale and score them for rewards against people who are putting deep work into the development of their character. We don’t know what to do about this directly, we're leaning toward lower rewards for obvious regurgitation.

Our Request: We encourage everyone to focus on creating authentic, character-driven content. Regardless of how you write it, focusing on theme, interesting stories, stylistic points of view, etc., will likely get you further with the award mechanics.

If you find yourself uncomfortable with roleplay or you simply don't enjoy it, you could spend time watching something like Critical Role or listening to some of the youtube videos from Fantasy Writers about scene construction in Fantasy Writing. (Jed Herne has a lot of instructional videos that may be interesting related to how you want to develop your character). There is a lot of fun to be had in a collaborative environment with stakes.

There’s content out there related to how AI can enhance the creative process. A quick google search turns up these results, though you can probably find better content out there related to it and based on your interests. https://www.descript.com/blog/article/h ... yre-scared , https://www.sps.nyu.edu/homepage/emergi ... ocess.html

This is a reminder that we award based on quality, stylistic consistency, thematic consistency, and unique character POV. AI-written content is likely not to meet these standards and will result in no rewards—feel free to use it as a writing aid, but don’t expect it to do the work for you and get rewarded.

If roleplay is done in a safe, invite-only room and not something that happens outside of those rooms, prompted by a call on Discord that you will be available for the next 90 minutes, and 8 people log on to sit in a room and either participate or wait, then it’s not fostering storytelling as much as it feels and looks like goal-oriented log-ins. We've also seen an uptick in goal-oriented logs (and gameplay) being primarily comprised of information easily accessed off of the WoT wiki, or in some cases even simply the first google search related to the previous statement. We'd really like to see more roleplay that isn't started or primarily focused on goal-oriented logins, logs, and responses, but rather tied to the character.

We also have Staff story board posts, and you can tie your roleplaying to that. The story is designed to be fluid and moves based on player actions/roleplay. It seems like the majority read these posts and are often confused by them, but we write them to create a scene for participation. There are also examples of Staff coordinating with players to bring in-game events to the public through the ToL/ToD/ToS.

+1 re: the AI content. I have spent a bunch of time with ChatGPT and other AI tools, and can tell you the off-the-shelf quality is not good for high quality creative work. The White Tower pantry quest I actually wrote with heavy assistance from ChatGPT, but it took a ton of time/tinkering/editing/retrying on my part to get it the way I wanted it, and that I felt was good enough for the game. The upside is it let me make the quest much more complex than I would have likely been able to do in the same timeframe on my own when used as a smart assistant — but it is not a replacement writer or able to create content on its own, and I don’t suggest using it like that.

One thing I have found it useful for is generating ideas when I am feeling stuck, e.g., try a prompt like “You are Robert Jordan, writing new stories in the Wheel of Time series. Generate ten different ideas for potential storylines involving the Aiel raiding Cairhien.” Or something like “You are Robert Jordan, writing new stories in the Wheel of Time series. You need to come with backstory concepts for a White Tower novice. She is from a poor farming family outside of Whitebridge. Come up with ten potential reasons she might have come to train at the White Tower in bullet points. Do not include trollocs killing her family for any of them, as trollocs attacking a farm is a known trope.” If the results are bad: “Come up with ten more ideas.”

The AI is not great at writing the actual story content, but it can help you get un-stuck, particularly if you prompt it go come up with several different ideas or concepts, and then pick the ones you like to create your own story.

AI is also quite poor at thematic consistency, so you really have to watch for that. E.g., I have tried using it for writing mob descriptions, and it’s better at high level concepts than the actual writing. Otherwise you end up with very, very strange writing like shawls that have emotions, serpent rings that are the wrong color, nationalities that don’t match the descriptions or backstory well at all, etc. It is terrible at geography and other spatial concepts. It also quite frequently tries to pull in generic fantasy (blegh), as it does not really know better. So you end up with runes, mystic amulets, and that sort of thing, which make no sense in the Wheel of Time.

It’s also good at proofreading and editing, and making suggestions. “I’m Robert Jordan, writing a new Wheel of Time story. You are my editor. Proofread this story, and make specific suggestions for where and how I might improve its writing and to make it more immersive. Briefly explain your reasoning for each suggestion.”

TLDR: Treat it like an assistant, don’t outsource your actual writing.

Feneon wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 21, 2024 8:31 pm

There’s content out there related to how AI can enhance the creative process. A quick google search turns up these results, though you can probably find better content out there related to it and based on your interests. https://www.descript.com/blog/article/h ... yre-scared , https://www.sps.nyu.edu/homepage/emergi ... ocess.html

Thanks for the link to that blog post - some good advice from creatives that are immersed in the impact of AI in the arts.

It is actually pretty good as a proof reader *stare*

So a friend helped me figure out the best way to use AI for writing.

You tell it what you want, outline stuff, ask it what questions it needs info on, tell it everything.

Then when it spouts out what it does, you get so enraged with the garbage that you are fully activated to write what you need to write.