March 8: Hasbro CEO: AI the "Great Leveler" for D&D

In This Edition

• Wizards of the Coast

• Crowdfunding

• TTRPG Tech

Semafor hosted a rather big interview with Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks about the state of the company and his thoughts on where the game is going. The entire article is worth your time, but the two bits that I found most important was how he was running D&D games for his sales team (?) and how he was using AI in his home games:

Smartphone screens are not the toy industry’s only technology challenge. Cocks uses artificial intelligence tools to generate storylines, art, and voices for his D&D characters and hails AI as “a great leveler for user-generated content.”

Current AI platforms are failing to reward creators for their work, “but I think that’s solvable,” he says, describing himself as “an AI bull” who believes the technology will extend the reach of Hasbro’s brands. That could include subscription services letting other Dungeon Masters enrich their D&D campaigns, or offerings to let parents customize Peppa Pig animations. “It’s supercharging fandom,” he says, “and I think that’s just net good for the brand.”

I’ve a lot of questions I want to ask about Cocks’ relationship with D&D, and would honestly love to see Cocks DM at some point, because his current views on AI and DMing have me perplexed, to put it mildly. I struggle to see him DMing as much as he claims considering how busy most executives I’ve interviewed over the years are. But I’m open to being surprised.

Cocks has been a big AI fan and claimed that the 50+ years of D&D content could be used to train an LLM to generate D&D content in a VentureBeat interview last year. At the same time, the company has committed to not using AI-generated art within its books to date. The two are not necessarily contradictory, as Cocks could be pushing to use the software to generate content via a separate generative AI engine that helps players to DM or create content through something like D&D Beyond. But that’s just a speculative theory at this time.

In other news, the new D&D Starter Kit was unveiled at a big toy fair, and it basically looks like a board game. Polygon went and got a closer look at it.

Kickstarter campaigns are all over the place this week!

There’s Zamanora: Ballad of the Witch, a 5e companion that provides content for 5e, 2024 D&D and Legends in the Mist with slavic and Balkan fantasy flavorings.

Tom Cartos, a well-established mapmaker in the VTT space, is releasing a series of books of modern maps that will fit in well for most modern-day or cyberpunk campaigns.

Awfully Queer Heroes is offering its own Norse/Gothic d10 system and setting titled Vildheim for people wanting to do vikings but not 5e.

Cold City Hot War is a TTRPG based on some older games where players explore the Cold War and modern politics through a Cold War campaign based in London and Berlin.

Want a new indie game where you drive mechs and try to find the bodies of old gods? Celestial Bodies is the game for you.

Rowan Rook and Decard is rebooting Voidheart Symphony, a game where players use psychic powers to hunt down and defeat the upper class in their castle.

Want to make your dice with a flavor similar to your character token? HeroForge (best known for making digital and physical player tokens) now does this with dice.

Terraforming Mars is a TTRPG campaign in which players play astronauts and colonists who help colonize and reform Mars. The game is based on the popular board game of the same name and is doing well compared to other campaigns so far.

Festival of the Forgotten is a short campaign inspired by the TikTok character known as the Eldritch Author and brings an evil circus to your world. Honestly, it’s just such a cool idea and is inspired by a popular TikToker. That’s enough to get me curious.

TTRPG Technology

Roll20 announced that it currently has like 1,200 character sheets hosted on its website. Many of them are player-made, but that’s just a bonkers number to reach.

I wrote up my first impressions of Project Sigil and am eager to see what it becomes.