This week is no Fayn lore entry; I spent way too much time last week going to VA medical appointments to sit down and actually write a decent article.
For your viewing pleasure, I’m sharing a, quite frankly, awesome video I stumbled across on YouTube a couple of days ago. If you’re in my age group, you remember the CBS Saturday morning cartoon Dungeons & Dragons… and if you’re sensible, you have fond memories of it.
Apparently, someone took the bull by the horns and starting working with it to produce a ten part series, of which part one recently dropped. Here it is:
Now, I’ve seen some flak here and there about this being AI augmented. Here are my thoughts on that:
How one could look at the quality of this work and then turn his nose up because you don’t like the media used to present it is beyond me. I fully understand there’s a lot of AI slop out there, especially on YouTube. I don’t like it either. This isn’t it.
If you don’t like the quality use of AI because you think it takes away from artists, then you should also stop using digital cameras. Hell, you should stop using photography all together and move on back to painting… maybe even drawing on cave walls with charcoal. You can stand on principle while you’re foraging for berries and clubbing to death your next meal.
If you have a problem with AI, you’d better deal with it now: mostly likely the receptionist on the other end of the line is AI, your online purchases are being handled by AI, and AI is definitely going to be a big part of the RPG industry’s future.
I’ve voiced my opinions about its use in this industry in the past. I think it’s here to stay, but it will never go anywhere great without the spark of human creativity. That’s the happy medium we’ll have to embrace one way or another. The video above is proof it can be achieved.
Artistic media changes. You can find Darlene’s account of the incredible work she put into the creation of the legendary Greyhawk map. I don’t think anyone does map work that way anymore with the advent of computer and graphics tech. I personally did the Fayn map by drawing the Sea outline on paper, scanning it, and augmenting it through Wonderdraft. I could do much better if I really wanted.
Ultimately, how far you embrace the use of AI in your gaming and media is up to you. This hobby is so decentralized and borderline anarchic that one ring will never rule them all.
The first rule is the Rule of Cool.