Last week: Use AI for Routine TTRPG Prep, Not for Creative Work
For this experiment, I’m going to use room Arden Vul’s room 4-47 (“Overseer”) as an example. You can find this entry on page 272 of volume 1. The following description includes minor spoilers about an NPC and their faction, but I wanted to use it because it is such a good example of the issues described in the previous post. I don’t think this gives away too much in the grand scheme of Arden Vul; but if you have plans to play in this campaign in the future, and are sensitive to spoilers, you can skip down to the Conclusions heading for the summary.
Here’s the text as it appears in the Arden Vul book:
4-47: Overseer
Belisarius the Overseer, the second most powerful figure in the cult of Set, lives and works in this large room. The overseer is the ranking ‘secular’ figure of the cult, and is in charge of all guardsmen, military expeditions, security, patrols, and so forth. For all that, Belisarius is a devout, even fanatical, follower of Set, and an adept politician. He is also a misogynist and dislikes High Priestess Stephania intensely. As a result he is constantly plotting her demise, and hopes to replace her with the third priest, Lacedaion. Stephania is aware of these machinations and has taken precautions; she has not acted against Belisarius yet solely because he is so good at what he does. Despite his prejudices, Belisarius would never act to undermine the cult as a whole; only if he were convinced of the motives of outsiders would he consider employing them against Stephania.
The chamber is divided into a public and private area; the latter is to the east, and is shielded by some painted wooden screens. The public area has a large tactical table on which lie (incomplete) maps of the northern and southern caves of Level 4 as well as one ancient map detailing portions of the lower levels (GM’s choice). Also in the public area are several writing desks and chairs containing roster lists, personnel reports, logistical reports, and so forth. Two aides-de-camp (from the Alpha Sept) are always present here. At the north wall, next to the door to the caves, stands a large cabinet in which may be found a sizable number of curios looted from the halls as well as 12 bound codices (on theological, military, and motivational subjects). The private area contains a simple bed, an armoire, another writing desk, a weapon and armor rack, a practice dummy, two cots for the aides, a set of four easy chairs around a coffee table, and a cabinet containing 22 bottles of excellent brandy. In addition to his administrative skills, Belisarius is a formidable warrior.
The north door leads to a narrow tunnel that provides Belisarius with private access to the cavern at 4-66 via a one-way door. He doesn’t use this door very often, and the corridor is thus thick with dust.
There is a 50% chance that Belisarius is present in his quarters. The rest of the time he is elsewhere in the complex, typically in 4-2, 4-3, 4-7, 4-43, 4-51, 4-53, or 4-61. He has a 25% chance to be in 4-48 whenever the second mystery is performed [sic]
Secret Door (east): This door is normal to find and locked, and leads to a set of secret interrogation chambers. Only the overseer and his aides-de-camp know of the existence of the door and the interrogation chambers. The key to the door is hidden in Belisarius’s liquor cabinet.
Inhabitants:
1. Belisarius the Overseer, 7th-level male Archontean fighter: SZ M; AL LE; AC 2; MV 120’; HD 7; HP 70; #AT 3/2; Dmg 3-8 (javelin +2) or 4-11 (long sword +2). Abilities: STR 17, INT 13, WIS 16, DEX 11, CON 16, CHA 15. Possessions: chain mail +3; returning javelin +2 (see new magic items), long sword +2; potion of extra healing (x2); potion of fly; and a key-ring with keys to SL8-1 and 4-106.
2. 2 aides-de-camp, 3rd-level female Archontean fighters: SZ M; AL NE; AC 5; MV 120’; HD 3; HP 25, 22; #AT 1; Dmg 1-8 (mace), 1-6 (spear) or 1-4 (light crossbow). Possessions: Set armor (see Arden Vul items); spear; mace, and light crossbow.
Stop and think for a moment about how this information is organized. It’s not random. The most important information is up top (who Belisarius is and what his motivations are). It is followed by the physical contents of the room, then more conditionally relevant information, like how the room connects to other spaces. It ends with the stats for the potential occupants. For purposes of the DM reading the text in advance of running the dungeon, this is basically fine.
But for use at the table? This could be much better.
The first paragraph is all about Belisarius’s motives and (implicitly) how he will act and react if the PCs become involved in the politics of the cult of Set. This is the most important information in a narrative sense, but the least important information in the context of dungeon exploration. This paragraph is actively hampering the product’s usefulness at the table, where speed of adjudication would be the DM’s priority. If the PCs are engaging diplomatically with members of the cult of Set, the DM will probably need this information long before the characters wander into Belisarius’s bedroom.
The second paragraph begins to lay out the practical details of the room. Halfway through this paragraph, we learn that “two aides-de-camp are always present here.” It’s easy to imagine a DM describing this room, with its tables and maps, and then suddenly, in a surprised voice, saying “Oh! Uh, and… there are two fighters here?” At minimum, some kind of bolding should indicate the presence of monsters and NPCs. The paragraph goes on to list more contents of the room, and the final sentence states that “In addition to his administrative skills, Belisarius is a formidable warrior.” This would be more at home in the first paragraph explaining who he is, or omitted entirely (his formidability in combat is clearly telegraphed by his stat block).
The third paragraph addresses the northern exit and is almost entirely redundant with information that can be intuited from looking at the map (another common point of complaint in Ten Foot Pole reviews). The fourth paragraph provides context for the secret door in the east wall. The key that unlocks this secret door is first mentioned here, not earlier, when its actual hiding place is described. So a DM could easily adjudicate the PCs searching the liquor cabinet without realizing they should find the key that is hidden there.
So, how good of a job can AI do unpacking this information? Let’s find out.
Here’s the prompt I gave ChatGPT: “Can you improve the organization and formatting of the following text? This is a room description for a roleplaying game, but the text needs to be reformatted so the person running the game can more quickly find the most important information. Details about people, creatures, or other things adventurers might interact with when exploring this space are most important and should be emphasized. Use bolding, bullets, and any other formatting tools you want to make the text easier to reference on the fly.”
The output was as follows:
Key NPCs and Creatures
1. Belisarius the Overseer
- Role: Second most powerful figure in the cult of Set; Overseer of guardsmen, military expeditions, and security.
- Personality: Devout, fanatical follower of Set; adept politician; misogynist; intensely dislikes High Priestess Stephania and plots her demise but remains loyal to the cult as a whole.
- Combat Stats:
- Class/Level: 7th-level male Archontean fighter
- Alignment: Lawful Evil (LE)
- Armor Class (AC): 2
- Movement (MV): 120’
- Hit Dice (HD): 7
- Hit Points (HP): 70
- Attacks (#AT): 3/2
- Damage (Dmg): 3-8 (javelin +2) or 4-11 (long sword +2)
- Abilities: STR 17, INT 13, WIS 16, DEX 11, CON 16, CHA 15
- Possessions: Chain mail +3, returning javelin +2, long sword +2, two potions of extra healing, potion of fly, key-ring (keys to SL8-1 and 4-106).
2. Aides-de-Camp (2)
- Role: Assist Belisarius with administrative tasks; always present in the public area.
- Combat Stats:
- Class/Level: 3rd-level female Archontean fighters
- Alignment: Neutral Evil (NE)
- Armor Class (AC): 5
- Movement (MV): 120’
- Hit Dice (HD): 3
- Hit Points (HP): 25, 22
- Attacks (#AT): 1
- Damage (Dmg): 1-8 (mace), 1-6 (spear), or 1-4 (light crossbow)
- Possessions: Set armor (unique to Arden Vul), spear, mace, light crossbow.
Room Layout and Features
Public Area
- Tactical Table:
- Contains incomplete maps of the northern and southern caves of Level 4.
- Includes an ancient map detailing portions of the lower levels (GM’s choice).
- Writing Desks:
- Hold roster lists, personnel reports, logistical data, and similar documents.
- Cabinet (North Wall):
- Contains curios looted from the halls and 12 bound codices (topics: theological, military, motivational).
Private Area
- Sleeping Quarters:
- Simple bed, armoire, writing desk, and cots for the aides.
- Recreational Area:
- Four easy chairs, coffee table, and a cabinet with 22 bottles of excellent brandy.
- Training Equipment:
- Weapon and armor rack, practice dummy.
Secret Features:
- Secret Door (East):
- Leads to interrogation chambers.
- Lock Details: Normal to find and locked.
- Key Location: Hidden in Belisarius’s liquor cabinet.
- Knowledge of this door’s existence is limited to Belisarius and his aides.
Exits
- North Door:
- Leads to a dusty, narrow tunnel providing private access to cavern 4-66 (via one-way door).
- Rarely used; thick with dust.
NPC Presence and Movement
Belisarius:
- Chance of Presence: 50% in his quarters.
- Typical Locations: 4-2, 4-3, 4-7, 4-43, 4-51, 4-53, or 4-61.
- Special Event: 25% chance to be in 4-48 during the second mystery.
GM Notes
- Belisarius's Plotting: Actively plots against High Priestess Stephania, intending to replace her with Lacedaion.
- Stephania’s Awareness: Aware of his schemes but tolerates him due to his efficiency.
- Interrogation Chambers: These are secret and only accessible through the locked door in the private area.
- Maps and Codices: Could provide adventurers with valuable intelligence if accessed.
This is already significantly improved. It’s overkill on the bullets, particularly in giving many bullets only a single sub-bullet (from an information design perspective, a single sub-bullet should never rarely appear alone, as it defeats the whole purpose of bullets, i.e., parsing out a list in a scannable format). But everything is much more clear than the original text, and the machine didn’t even need much coaching to reorganize the information in order of occupants → features → exits → miscellaneous.
I asked it to make a few changes, moving the NPCs presence to the top; merging the secret door info with the exit info; and condensing some of the bullets to shorten the overall vertical “height” of the entry. It produced this:
Key NPCs and Creatures
1. Belisarius the Overseer
- Role: Second most powerful figure in the cult of Set; Overseer of guardsmen, military expeditions, and security.
- Personality: Devout, fanatical follower of Set; adept politician; misogynist; intensely dislikes High Priestess Stephania and plots her demise but remains loyal to the cult as a whole.
- Chance of Presence: 50% in his quarters. Otherwise, typically in 4-2, 4-3, 4-7, 4-43, 4-51, 4-53, or 4-61. Special Event: 25% chance to be in 4-48 during the second mystery.
- Combat Stats:
- Class/Level: 7th-level male Archontean fighter; Alignment: Lawful Evil (LE); Armor Class (AC): 2
- Movement (MV): 120’; Hit Dice (HD): 7; Hit Points (HP): 70
- Attacks (#AT): 3/2; Damage (Dmg): 3-8 (javelin +2) or 4-11 (long sword +2)
- Abilities: STR 17, INT 13, WIS 16, DEX 11, CON 16, CHA 15
- Possessions: Chain mail +3, returning javelin +2, long sword +2, two potions of extra healing, potion of fly, key-ring (keys to SL8-1 and 4-106).
2. Aides-de-Camp (2)
- Role: Assist Belisarius with administrative tasks; always present in the public area.
- Combat Stats:
- Class/Level: 3rd-level female Archontean fighters; Alignment: Neutral Evil (NE)
- Armor Class (AC): 5; Movement (MV): 120’; Hit Dice (HD): 3; Hit Points (HP): 25, 22
- Attacks (#AT): 1; Damage (Dmg): 1-8 (mace), 1-6 (spear), or 1-4 (light crossbow)
- Possessions: Set armor (unique to Arden Vul), spear, mace, light crossbow.
Room Layout and Features
- Public Area:
- Tactical Table: Incomplete maps of the northern/southern caves of Level 4; ancient map detailing portions of lower levels (GM’s choice).
- Writing Desks: Roster lists, personnel reports, logistical data.
- Cabinet (North Wall): Contains curios looted from the halls and 12 bound codices (topics: theological, military, motivational).
- Private Area:
- Sleeping Quarters: Simple bed, armoire, writing desk, and cots for the aides.
- Recreational Area: Four easy chairs, coffee table, and a cabinet with 22 bottles of excellent brandy.
- Training Equipment: Weapon and armor rack, practice dummy.
Exits
- North Door:
- Leads to a dusty, narrow tunnel providing private access to cavern 4-66 (via one-way door). Rarely used; thick with dust.
- Secret Door (East):
- Leads to interrogation chambers. Lock is normal to find and locked.
- Key Location: Hidden in Belisarius’s liquor cabinet.
- Only Belisarius and his aides know of its existence
GM Notes
- Belisarius's Plotting: Actively plots against High Priestess Stephania, intending to replace her with Lacedaion.
- Stephania’s Awareness: Aware of his schemes but tolerates him due to his efficiency.
- Interrogation Chambers: These are secret and only accessible through the locked door in the private area.
- Maps and Codices: Could provide adventurers with valuable intelligence if accessed.
This is pretty close to how I would organize this information if I had converted this room key into table notes by hand.
Finally, I asked it to add a table of contents at the top with a hyperlink to each section, and it provided blue-colored text that looked right… but didn’t appear to form an actual hyperlink, and didn’t work when I copied it into other programs. So there are limits to what it can do, but I think some combination of better prompting and using a more advanced AI could get there.
Conclusions
This is really only scratching the surface. If you gave an AI the entire text of an adventure you were going to run, you could ask it to create cross-references and summaries. It could generate random encounter tables based on dungeon denizens. It could provide a treasure index.
Yes, all of these tasks are things the GM can do themselves. But they are time-consuming. AI helps in the same way that conventional word processing software saves time, which can be reallocated to the more creative parts of session prep.
There are some issues to navigate before using this more broadly. Some AIs might introduce external information, hallucinate, or garble details (although this is less of an issue when asking it to rearrange or summarize content, versus creating new content). And we should be mindful of any stipulations that creators put on the use of their work vis-a-vis AI, particularly concerns over training data. ChatGPT does not use submitted content to train its model, but other AIs might. If a creator includes stipulations about using their content in this way, err on the side of caution and keep it away from the AI.
But GMs should absolutely continue to explore AI as a prep assistant. The world has a finite number of highlighters, and your wrist is probably going to give out before you get halfway through marking up a beast like Arden Vul. Don't let something as simple as organization and formatting stand between you and running an epic megadungeon like this.
