In a Pinch
As far as I can tell, even though they’re getting closer, the AIs are not yet ready to GM, but they can assist in a pinch.
If you have at your disposal an A.I. (artificial intelligence) you can chat with, you have a kind of leverage for your role as a GM. Don’t rely on AIs too much, because you don’t know if they’ll be there for you.
But a little bit of coaxing goes a long way.
Need a quick list of magic items?
Prompt:
List magic items in a fantasy setting that I might find in an artificer’s lab?
Need directions to somewhere?
Prompt:
I’m the green rider-hood. I lost the breadcrumbs due to hungry birds. And I need directions to grandma wolf’s house.
Other useful prompts…
Generate NPCs:
Please generate a gruff dwarf NPC for my fantasy RPG. Include a name, physical description, backstory, personality traits, and anything else that would be useful for roleplaying them.
Create custom locations/scenes:
I need a vivid description of an ancient ruined temple overrun by vegetation for my adventure. Please generate details about the architecture, statues, plant growth, smells, lighting, and atmosphere.
Improvise dialog:
The guard NPC wants to prevent the adventurers from entering the city gate without permission. Generate a short natural conversation where he questions them.
Generate plot hooks/quests:
Can you come up with 3 interesting plot hook ideas I could present to the adventuring party for their next quest? The setting is medieval fantasy.
Add details:
To add immersion, can you describe the bustling crowd and smells of the marketplace the players are walking through right now?
Improvise content:
The players wander into a part of the forest I didn’t prep for. Can you quickly generate descriptions of what they see around them?
If you use Bard, keep your conversation short, because Bard has a hard time keeping track of who said what in a conversation.
Claude.ai and ChatGPT 3.5 or 4.0 have worked well on the fly.
We’ll have to wait.
I’m guessing at this point that an AI with a quantum computer core dedicated to GMing could do it well.