Chaosium, the 50-year-old tabletop RPG publisher behind Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest, has become the second TTRPG studio in recent weeks to have to pull and re-publish one of their games because automatic, AI-generated image descriptions (alt text) had been inadvertently added to the PDF during production.
“Chaosium does not use AI in our projects,” writes Chaosium co-owner and Vice President Michael ‘MOB’ O’Brien in a statement published on the company website Monday.
But the company has still been forced to de-GenAI-ify, update, and re-release the free quickstart PDF for its rather promising new Time Without Tide RPG. That’s because, according to O’Brien, “Adobe has implemented a new feature that creates AI-generated descriptions of images” which O’Brien says were “quietly inserted” into the game “without our knowledge or consent” and contained “various errors”.
Chaosium’s statement says it has “now disabled this feature on Adobe”, and has replaced the free quickstart rules on the game’s Backerkit campaign page with the new, human only version. “We regret this happened”, O’Brien says, adding that “Chaosium has always championed human creativity. The vision of design and creation set by Greg Stafford in 1975 continues to this day”.
As MOB notes, fellow TTRPG publisher Evil Hat had to perform the same treatment on its game Umdaar: Planet of Swords, Super-Science, and Sorcery in June, reporting the same issue with AI generated image alt texts being “quietly injected” into the PDF during production.
“We do not use AI. Period. We pay humans to create our games, end-to-end,” says Evil Hat in a BlueSky post. “We apologize for the error,” the publisher continues, adding “F*ck AI”.
Wargamer has reached out to Adobe’s press office for comment on how AI-generated image description features are handled in its software, and to ask how users can avoid these GenAI features being activated if they’re not wanted. We’ll update this story if and when we receive a reply.
The news comes as opposition to Generative AI within the tabletop games industry – and especially around tabletop RPGs – is apparently becoming more outspoken and organized. Our own Mollie Russell reported on the popularity of anti-AI messaging at the UK Games Expo earlier this Summer, speaking to multiple designers about how they see AI’s influence on tabletop gaming.
And in May, Chaosium itself was among the many publishers who loudly condemned ‘Most Influential Tabletop Game Icons’, a creator of bizarre AI-powered biographies of game designers which came under fire for generating and publishing “AI slop” images of respected industry figures – including Chaosium’s deceased founder, Greg Stafford – without consent.
With escalating signs that markets may be losing confidence in the future profitability of AI companies, and an increasing number of commentators confidently predicting the AI “bubble” will burst tomorrow/next week/next month/very soon we pinkie promise, anti-AI game designers are hoping the technology’s influx into the tabletop industry may soon slow or reverse, but when and how is still unclear.
While we wait, though, the Time Without Tide quickstart is now AI free and, er, free (you just have to click ‘follow’ on the Backerkit campaign to get it), and we think it looks pretty darn cool, so go check it out! If you do, come share your thoughts on the game with us by joining the free Wargamer Discord community (where AI generated content is banned, incidentally).
Source: Wargamer
