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IT may seem like this is turning into a journal about my Pathfinder games, but really this is more a bit of a rant about my latest attempt to wrangle with AI than it is about role-playing pastimes, I promise.

So I was preparing for my Pathfinder game the other day, as one does, and I had what I thought—foolishly enough, nay, naïvely, I say—at the time to be a very simple issue at hand. I had a boat. Just a boat.

Let me back up a little.

Our brave heroes are currently exploring their way through a dense rainforest known as the Mwangi Expanse, canoeing down a wide, slow-moving river. After a few miles, they encounter a boat moored to the riverbank. They get out to investigate, which introduces them to a delightful character, none other than the world-famous Gerhard Pendergrast, Gentleman Archæologist, renowned scholar, best-selling author, and… well, need I say more? I envisioned him as something of a cross between Othar Tryggvassen and Ace Rimmer with a dash of Troy McClure added to the mix to get just the right flavor to him.¹ If you’re curious, the interaction with him is recorded in our online summary page.

But that’s not what I came here to talk about.

So about that boat….

I had a simple, straightforward need. I just wanted a description of the boat to be able to describe it to my players. Normally, I’d just fill in that detail myself, make something up that sounded good, since the module as written just says there’s “a boat” here. But it was late, I was tired, I was out of creativity, whatever excuse you want to imagine. I thought to myself, “Hey, let’s just let one of those brilliant AI robot things come up with something really fast and easy. I mean, it’s not like I’m asking for something difficult, just, ‘What does the boat look like? How big is it?’ No problem!”

Oh, past me, you sweet summer child.

Yeah, I know. AI isn’t intelligent or creative. But it is, especially the one hooked up to Google search, connected to a bajillion web documents, forums, pages, and all that stuff we fantasized about back in the 60s and 70s when we said in the 21st century computers would store “all of humanity’s collected knowledge” where it could be searched instantly.² So, I figured, surely since this module was written seven years ago and already played by countless gaming groups before us, people have discussed it already online, let alone the fact that surely even the module text itself is available somewhere the AI can find it. Somewhere it could find 164 places people have talked about the boat in their games, what it looked like, and synthesize that into some kind of answer for me.

Ha.

Wizards of the Coast and/or Hasbro are currently (apparently) operating under some kind of delusion that it’s a wonderful (or even viable) idea that offering AI dungeon masters to run games for people would be fun. I think it’s a bit like coming across a genie and being presented with the offer to have three wishes granted.

Now, how that turns out for you depends on the fairy tale you’re reading, but for anyone who’s played D&D or adjacent TTRPG games for awhile knows the peril that lies in that direction especially if the creature granting wishes is doing so under any level of duress at all, and is prone to twist the meaning of your wish in a way that it can technically be granting what you asked for but clearly doing so with the grandest of malicious compliance. (“Genie, make me a sandwich,” for example.)

I think I’ve discovered that AI GMs would be malicious in every way. What did it say about the boat’s appearance, you ask?

There is no boat.

Okay, fair enough, AI misses things sometimes, although I admit I was a little surprised since as I said above it would have had access to ample information that should have informed it of at least the existence of the boat. But that’s the beauty of an AI as opposed to a search engine. You can talk to an AI.

Just like you can talk to Hal, apparently.

“Oh,” I replied, “actually, no, you’re mistaken, there IS one in the module. It’s tied up on the riverbank. It belongs to Gerhard Pendergrast. I just need to know what it looks like.”

Whirrr… Buzz…

No, there’s no boat there. Gerhard is blustering about his
capabilities and resources but has no boat like he claims.

Huh?

Well, that’s sort of true, but not completely, but doesn’t make sense either, he has a boat. I’m looking at it right here on the page:

Treasure: Gerhard has left a boat on the riverbank to the south. This boat can be used as a raft to navigate the river (see page 118 for more information on using a raft on the river) if the PCs find it. More importantly, the boat contains a small bundle²²⁰⁷⁸ stuffed up in the bow that contains some of Gerhard’s prior discoveries on his expedition, items scavenged from local ruins.

Oh, yes, I see the problem, I’m sorry.

Good, now we’re getting some—

Since there’s no boat in the module, your GM added one for your
local game. You will need to ask him or her for any specifics
about it since it’s not a standard part of this adventure.

What?

No, you’re not hallucinating, you tin-plated traitor! You’re doubling down on your mistake and gaslighting me about it now. Holy cow.

“No, you are still wrong. There is definitely a boat, the module says so explicitly.”

Oh, I am sorry, you are right.

“Thank you. What does it look like?”

It is just a hastily-tied-together raft of banyan trees, 15x15
feet across with a box in the center holding some items.

Well, that’s a description. Not one that matches what’s already written in the module at all or makes any contextual sense,³ but it’s something.

It was at this point I just gave up and wrote my own description that actually described a boat that would have accommodated his crew and cargo on the journey he had taken so far.

I think my job as a human GM is secure for the time being.

Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.
—Stephen Hawking