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Sunday, March 10, 2024

Roleplay Rev is AI Assistance for RPGs

Roleplay Rev is AI Assistance for RPGs
So I was screwing around on my phone, as one does, and I came across this AI adventure generator called Roleplay Rev. While I'm not a huge AI fan, I have played around with it some and I liked the idea of a tool that could conceivably be used to help create an adventure quickly.

I know all too well that sometimes it takes a metric shit-ton of effort to create a good effort. Actually just creating an adventure can take a lot of time.....one that is good(?).....can take freaking forever. While I don't expect a ton of quality from an AI generator, I figure it could be good at getting some of the grunt-work done so I could edit the generated adventure. Editing/Tweaking can take a lot less time, at least in my experience.

So I created an account at Roleplay Rev and started out with three credits. My initial thought was, "Oh so it's kind of free...great" It costs a credit to generate an adventure and while it didn't state it upfront, you get a credit per day you log in. Pretty much up front is that if you want some of the cooler/finer tools it costs $5 a month (normally $10?). After the fact I can see $5 a month being worth it, but that's probably something that would be covered in a summary paragraph.

Anyway, I started with this prompt: "The world is dominated by Man and organized into distinct countries. A valuable mountain range has been taken over by the ruling country and the party consists of dwarves that have to organize a resistance to retake their ancestral homeland from the army of men." Now I'm not sure that was worded well for an AI prompt since I haven't used AI stuff very much but I was pleased to find that the generator re-worded my prompt, that I could then tweak if needed and it even gave the damn thing a title: 

The Battle for the Mountain

The dwarves must organize a resistance to retake their ancestral homeland, a valuable mountain range, from the army of men who have taken it over.

Nice, I can work with that.....I was led through a few options for potential plot hooks and I settled on my favorite:

The players start the adventure in the depths of the mountain range, where they witness the men's army setting up mining operations to extract valuable resources. The dwarves are outraged at the desecration of their ancestral home and feel compelled to take action to reclaim it.

Then the AI generated some lore/background and I got this:

The players receive a distress call from a group of dwarven miners who managed to escape the army's occupation. They describe the devastation brought upon their once-thriving community and plead for the players' help in organizing a resistance to retake their homeland.

The players witness a fierce battle between the dwarven resistance and the army of men, where the dwarves are outnumbered and struggling to defend their territory. Witnessing the bravery and determination of their kin, the players feel a deep sense of duty to join the resistance and fight for their people's freedom.

The central conflict stems from the ruling country's desire to exploit the valuable resources within the dwarven ancestral mountain range. The ruler of the country, King Thorian, seeks to strengthen his kingdom's economy and military power by gaining control of the rich mines and strategic location of the mountains. To achieve this, he has dispatched a formidable army led by General Rendak to forcibly occupy the dwarven territories, displacing the native inhabitants and suppressing any resistance.

King Thorian's ultimate plan is to establish permanent control over the mountain range, leveraging the resources to enrich his kingdom and solidify his rule. The dwarves, however, refuse to relinquish their ancestral lands and are determined to fight back. The villainous General Rendak is tasked with not only subduing the dwarven resistance but also ensuring that the mountain range remains under the control of the ruling country. His cruel methods and ruthless tactics have further fueled the dwarves' resolve to reclaim their homeland and drive out the oppressive army.


Honestly, for free, I'd have been good with what I got so far, but some actual encounters would help...and then it gave me three potential encounters. Thing was I didn't just get three potential encounters. No, I got three types of encounters to choose from and it defaulted to one skill encounter, one social encounter, and one combat encounter. If I wanted three combat encounters I could've done that. It's important to note that I got to establish the general "feel" for the campaign, the size of the party, and the level, which was all factored in. For the record, I went with "realistic", 6 party members, and 1st level.

So the thing spit out the three encounters, gave me some NPCs and saved everything. The $5 paid content would go so far as to let me generate battle maps (IIRC they don't actually generate battlemaps but they have a large stockpile of ready-made maps that the AI chooses from) and generate PCs. There is also, and I think this is free, a way to basically play a solo adventure through the adventure you just made as well. I started messing with that but didn't even start the adventure portion.

Pretty much everything is tweakable and while it looks like it's set up for maybe 5th Edition D&D, I don't know it's definitely not OSR, there's a LOT of meat on those bones. You can not only create adventures but also campaigns and worlds as well, all with AI assistance. I do not think it would be difficult to take a few minutes to create an adventure and basically tweak on the fly. Combined with your own map collection and your own bestiary......this could be a great help.

For $5 a month I think the organization factor (world, campaign, adventures) alone might be worth it, especially if I can get some AI assistance and prompts to help fill in gaps. For the price of free, definitely worth checking out Roleplay Rev.

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