Scopique
ScopiqueWell, it’s been nice knowing some of you, as this post will certainly rub some people the wrong way.
Yes, it’s about my AI use.
I have this desire…nay, need…to work on TTRPG-related stuff right now, so I’m at That Point in my annual cycle. I have put great distance between myself an anything “high fantasy” related which narrows my opportunity for resources, and have possibly halved it again by gently laying aside science fiction-heavy settings. I’m still on the “The Secret World-slash-Delta Green” axis which I’m sure represents a genre that is well cared for in the TTRPG world, but is still lacking the kind of near-universal support that high fantasy gets. I also think it’s a little more difficult to work with the “eldritch in modern times” genre as it’s way too easy to cross the line from terrifying cosmic horrors to Scooby-Do.
I came up with the idea to mine part of a plot of a novel that I was familiar with. This story takes place in modern day and while it doesn’t have the breadth of terror that both TSW or DG offer, it’s primary concern is pretty cool in my opinion. The likelihood that anyone I know would be able identify the source of the adventure I’d base it on would be pretty small, so I decided to run with it as my foundation.
That’s kind of where it ended. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me where to take it…or how to rekajigger the original story idea into a completely different box of my own design. That’s when I turned to AI. I entered in my basic premise, and asked it to give me an outline of a potential TTRPG adventure, specifically focused on The Secret World. The results were…kind of mind-blowing.
Unfortunately, I can’t run down what it spit out because it would be one whole mass of spoilers but as I was reading the recount of the plot, the characters, et al. I was very impressed with the overall arc of the story. I figured it was good enough for the broad strokes, but I decided that I’d need some “side quests” to flesh things out, so I asked it to provide such content and it came back with some additional missions that fed into the main arc, but wouldn’t advance it at an unacceptable speed.
After consideration, I realized that this adventure was a bit short and could be a bit quick for players who were much better at unraveling the plot than I would be presenting it to them, so I asked to have a five-adventure campaign drafted in the same setting, with the same original conceit and I have to say that I am far more impressed this time than I was before. After reading the synopsis of each adventure, I had two thoughts. The first was that this was a great story: coherent, hits the right beats, stays close to my original modified concept, and should be really fun to play.
The second was that I couldn’t possibly have come up with this story where my mind is at right now. Looking at what AI created, I was concerned about why I couldn’t have come up with this myself. I felt kind of dumb, but I’ve already talked about my general condition when it comes to creative projects lately. I do not feel dumb asking AI to take a stab at it, though. It’s given a good foundation, and for the second pass, I did not ask it to fill in the holes for me.
That’s what I’m doing now: filling in those holes, or trying to. Since each of the five adventures is just a synopsis, I’m working on fleshing them out, building characters, and creating side quests and situations. In fact, with what I have in front of me right now, I’m feeling that the stuff I am adding is of pretty high quality — not the same quality I was once capable of in my youth, but much better than what I felt drove me to ask AI to do it in the first place.
I don’t know where this falls on the “it’s OK” to “you’re a horrible human being” spectrum, but that’s for me to decide. I feel that AI has provided a good starting point, although it leaves me questioning the extent of my mental fog if I couldn’t come up with something at the same level as what it provided. There’s something about the output I did receive, though, that seems to have reignited part of my brain that used to be able to do this kind of thing without effort. I’m not going to jump the gun and scream “I’m back, baby!”, but at least I was able to get some help that will hopefully put me on the right track for the future of this project.
6 Comments
Nimgimli
August 14, 2026 - 3:49 pmAs I keep saying, AI is a tool. Tools help you to be more productive. The AI gave you the jump start you happened to need at this particular moment in your life, and now you’re back to creating.
Anyone who sees that as a bad thing is, IMO, a dolt. Helping anyone get back into creating stuff is a net positive any way you look at it.
Scopique
August 17, 2026 - 12:31 pmExactly! Reading your comment, I thought of “the programmer’s duck” which of course isn’t a thing in the same way that it’s offered; a rubber duck can’t talk back to a person, but sometimes hearing oneself speak out loud can do wonders to unblock a mental block. Some people might look at it the idea of the duck and ask “why not just ask another person” and sometimes there’s value in asking someone’s opinion or someone for help, but other times there’s a lot MORE value in having a mechanism for figuring something out ourselves. That’s kind of the approach I was hoping AI could help me take. Be a little bit of a duck.
Bhagpuss
August 14, 2026 - 4:58 pmIn the event I ever get around to setting it up, I plan on feeding an LLM the 40k words of my unfinished novel and asking it how it should end. When I wrote it in the 90s I used to go into a scary kind of fugue state, such that when I stopped and read back what I’d written, I had next to no memory of writing it. It was so unnerving it was the main reason I never finished it and I don’t fancy starting that up again but I would like to finish the thing. I’m confident I can do that without having to go into a trance but only if I have a framework to work to and I am hopeless with plots. I have no idea how the story was meant to end because it was being plotted by some part of my brain to which I didn’t and still don’t have conscious access.
This, in my opinion, like your situation, is precisely what AI is for. As Nimgimli says, it’s a tool. You use it to do specific things and then you carry on from there, using different tools, namely your writing skill and imagination. I mostly use AI for music because I don’t generally feel I need the assistance in writing but I can recognize a use-case when I see one and I won’t be shy to use it if I feel it’s appropriate.
Scopique
August 17, 2026 - 12:34 pmI feel like there are people who are for, people who are against, and people who are in the middle of the AI situation (or any situation, I guess). Those in the middle are either begrudgingly accepting of AI because it seems to be here to stay while others in the middle view it as you say: a tool. A knife is a tool, but it can kill or simply cut a sandwich. How it’s used is up to the user and I don’t think that get’s enough weight in the conversations.
Jeromai
August 14, 2026 - 9:06 pmIt’s definitely collaborative. I got onto the AI bandwagon about a year ago, and am unabashedly using it now, to heck with what the trending social media commentary wants to say for views and clicks. Like any tool, it’s how you choose to use it.
You can allow it to replace you entirely. You can just hear what it has to say, or ask it to strawman or steelman. You can correct it. You can critically think -with- it. You can add on to it, give it more context, tweak/nudge/steer accordingly. It’s just how much effort one wants to expend, and how soon one accepts a satisfactory answer (or worse, assumes it is THE answer, instead of AN answer.)
Take the five adventures, for example. If any part of it is too generic, it’s always possible to ask AI to regenerate another try at it, and advise what you want or dislike accordingly. Or two adventures might sound good, but you want it blended, so ask AI to suggest five more plots blending Adventure 2 and 4.
Then the human gets to pick and choose whatever they like. AI in this case is just a more sophisticated, more verbose dice roll generation table.
Scopique
August 17, 2026 - 12:37 pmI hadn’t actually thought about it as collaborative until I started with this (and for a few development projects I was scaffolding). I had only encountered AI in search results which was more one-sided — I asked and it told me — or in the deluge of news stories and editorials which were all talking “around” AI. Using it to fill in gaps, though, has been wonderful, especially since most of my creative operations have been just me. It’s been quite a long while since I’ve actually worked WITH someone on anything, and I didn’t realize how much value could be had in doing so until I started down this path.
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