A tabletop publisher has said no to generative AI. It is a highly contentious topic within the business. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks has been praising the technology. Games Workshop has banned its use in Golden Demon. Kobold Press's CEO has said no AI art will appear in any of their products.
Kobold Press and Generative AI
According to an official blog post on Kobold Press' website, CEO Wolfgang Baur made a statement on the trend of generative AI content and the company's stance on its use.
Baur states that AI is popping up everywhere. It has been a point of controversy with Dungeons & Dragons. It's being used in various institutions, such as health insurance claims in the United States. In fact it's being used as a marketing feature with the latest smartphones.
While Baur doesn't discount the applications of AI in various fields, he does state that there are areas where it shouldn't belong specifically, at TTRPG tables among friends telling shared stories.
The staff at Kobold Press doesn’t think AI belongs in generating art, roleplaying, or storytelling. Making your game your own is the heart of the RPG hobby: creating your world, your character, and your story with friends. Frankly, we’ve seen LLM text prompts work ok for chatbots. But we play RPGs to play with our friends, not software.
The Kobold policy against AI has been in place since the rise of Midjourney and similar tools in 2022. We looked at them, learned that they were trained on images that ripped off working artists and violated their copyrights, and rejected them as unethical tools that require theft from creatives.
Baur's statement continues to give credit to Kobold Press' team of writers and artists. Alongside this praise, he emphasizes that none of their books will include any AI-generated art, maps, or game design elements, and elects to keep it that way.
Kobold Press is not alone in its anti-AI stance. It is joined by other TTRPG publishers in the industry such as Paizo and Chaosium.
The post ends with a sign-up sheet. If you support Kobold Press' stance against generative AI, you can add your name to the list.
Kobold Press has a strong reputation within the TTRPG community. They have produced multiple D&D 5e third-party materials such as the Tome of Beasts and their own fantasy TTRPG, Tales of the Valiant.
