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AI is not creative; it's an echo chamber of compiled data, sifted through the lens of a user's imperfect prompt, powered by an engine that uses questionable programmatic pattern matching, trained on vast quantities of often unvetted information.

Our Process

We purposefully developed a workflow using local files and a locally hosted AI engine on moderately powered PC hardware to simplify our processes.

Not to create, to organize and manage.

Obsidian.md is the core of our development workflow. It keeps notes and sections clearly organized using our designated structure, focusing our attention and efforts. It uses plain text markdown nativly keeping the essential content clean and easily converted to any other format like DOC/ODT, HTML or PDF. This format also happens to be the native output for most AI engines.

Obsidian can be extended with plugins that harness locally hosted AI engines like Ollama.ai or LMStudio with a downloaded LLM to operate as an assistant for organizing, editing and validating local files in complete isolation from the Internet. There are offline variants for most of the recognized AI providers but there are even more options for the more adventurous.

To keep the overall system load under control we rely on lighter models.

  • Reasoning capabilities are important for applying and following logical instructions.
  • Tool use is helpful to trigger Skills and delegate Agent tasks.
  • NO Image Processing capabilities are required or desired for our use.

These models can use our curated Skill library to focus on:

  • Building and maintaining a central reference within a project
  • Operating as a Hub to each project
  • Outlining new content within a project
  • Validating the Continuity of content within a project
  • Ingesting existing content sources into a project
  • Editing and tracking changes across a project
  • Formatting content for export to a different format

These lighter models do not need to be especially creative because whole-cloth content creation is NOT the purpose.

We can ask, "what's the status of this Section or Project" to pickup where we stopped and know what's left to complete. In a world where attention and time to focus on anything is limited, this is a critical component for our part-time efforts.

However, just like everyone else in the universe, we still have access to all the web-based AI engines for research and simple mechanical rule exploration. That's a fact for anyone with a cellphone and broadband Internet access. Results from these sessions are easily ingested to supplement incomplete ideas or theory expansion.

Creativity & Writing

We've been writing since the late 80's and early 90's. Volumes of hand written spiral notebooks and archives of digital files campaign notes abound. We've been home-brewing our own adventures in published settings and eventually leaped off the cliff of creating our very own settings. This provides a massive trove of long forgotten material from which to pull for our projects.

Applying AI to ingest and organize these archived resources was the first significant hurdle with all the formats we used over the decades. This is what led to the creation of our Skills library.

Should an idea be lost or discarded simply because the author can't market it to a major brand or understand all the processes required to develop it into a coherent final product?

AI 'Slop' in TTRPGs

Human minds consistently produce just as much "slop" as AI. Human generated TTRPG slop is found in binders full of GM notes, gathering dust because the author doesn't have the time, knowledge, motivation or resources to refine it into something useful to other people. Just like ours.

The slop that starts under a major publisher label cycles through several internal processes to which most solo creatives have no affordable, reliable or recognizable access.

AI excels at grinding data into passably useful formats that can guide an inexperienced writer toward something closer to marketable. It can also provide a convenient sounding board to explore ideas between regular game sessions.

It's like a room full of mediocre personalities that can offer research, editing, formatting and even creative prompts to funnel a single individual's concept closer to a final result.

  • Is it perfect? No.
  • Is it missing soul? Possibly.
  • Is the resulting content entirely invalidated due to AI involvement? No.

Regarding AI Artwork

TTRPG art is a significant factor in product identity and first impressions.

Major RPG publishers have always had a thriving ecosystem of recognizable staff artists connected with the products everyone associates with the hobby-space. There is absolutely no doubt that products from the 80's and 90's are almost universally identified by the artwork that created the visual landscape for the product lines.

AI will never be able to consistently create the visual identity for a traditional RPG thanks to the constant drift between human prompts and session variance.

  • Can a solo creator understand the nuances of finding an artist for producing exclusive artwork and all the processes required to make the art fit the project? Possibly.
  • Are most going to settle for stock art from the open market thus diluting their product identity? Likely.
  • Can producing original art be a realistic and affordable goal? Yes, with attention, patience and contacts.

Communication & Compensation

Artists are literally creating something unique from nothing. This creativity deserves compensation because it costs time, requires creativity and a talent for translating your description into a scene or character.

Do the research, find artists that can match your theme or vibe and assure you have a budget that isn't an insult. Be honest, let them know up front if you have no concept of what's reasonable for the art you want or if the planned scope is way out of line.

  • Can AI generate some impressive art? Sure.
  • Is it going to get identified, picked apart and criticized thus limiting your product's appeal? Most likely.
  • Is AI art derived from ingested intellectual properties? Being able to prompt "in the style of xxx" would indicate to me that, yes, it actually is. Otherwise how would it know to whom you're referring and how their particular style looks?

Even AI generated placeholder art is considered a black-eye to your potential product. If you're releasing preview copies, just create blank boxes to mark the space for editing layout.

If you pay for human created art, don't feed it to AI as source material for creating 'similar' spot art you suddenly need. In doing so, you've just provided a fresh sample of art, that you paid for, to an engine that will likely be used to churn out similar compositions for someone else.

If you start with an artist, work with them to create your look and feel and keep communication open for those last minute fillers that fit your existing theme.

The Wrap-Up

Are we going to shatter the foundation of TTRPGs with our innovative ideas or become filthy rich through this process? Absolutely not. That was never the point.

  • If you enjoy what we've created, cool.
  • If you hate that we used AI to fill the gaps, also cool.

AxiomRPG, in it's current iteration, is not really about appealing to the masses. We have neither the time nor the talent required to really accomplish that. It's about creating something a group of gamers enjoy playing and can call their own.

Ingesting and organizing our scatter-brained ideas into the framework provided by AxiomRPG for Catalogs or Adventures requires real human effort. Literal hours at a keyboard reading, revising and re-reading text. Entire sessions spent play testing, discussing mechanics, fun, agency and trends just like a big board room. AI is just one tool we use to stay focused as we work through the editing and re-editing processes before we play test something.

Note that there is no "package and sell these products for zillions of dollars" anywhere in our workflow. There's not even a real marketing plan anywhere in our processes.

This is not a money grab, it's a hobby. We create what we enjoy playing. If we ever reach the point of compiling passable PDF versions of our content, we may offer it for purchase somewhere to make pizza money for our games and that will be just fine.