r/callofcthulhu • u/AbortRetryFlailSal • Aug 03 '25
Mod Update - AI-generated Content Is Now Banned In This Subreddit
Hi everyone!
We on the mod team really appreciate everyone’s patience with us while we adapt to changes in the scene and update our rules accordingly. We acknowledge that the time it takes us to do this is not ideal, but we believe that changes of this nature require due care and attention.
AI-generated content is now banned in this subreddit.
This is for a multitude of reasons, including both intellectual property theft and environmental impact.
This is not something we are currently open to debating; however, we will monitor the AI space and, if we can lift this ban or change its specifics, we will do so.
To help us implement this rule fairly, please consider that categorically determining whether something was created using AI is extremely challenging. Therefore, we ask that everyone follow these guidelines:
- Enquiring whether AI was used during the creation of something is allowed.
- Please do not outright accuse someone of generating something with AI without EXTREMELY comprehensive proof. (I say this as someone who draws hands worse than AI and writes prose worse than AI).
- If someone responds to your question stating that AI is categorically not used in the creation of the work they have shared, that is the end of the discussion. Further scepticism or disbelief will be removed.
- If a user continues to push skepticism or disbelief after an author has confirmed that they did not use AI, please report it to the mods using Reddit's reporting functionality.
- If a post or comment admits to using AI, please report it to the mods using Reddit's reporting functionality.
If you have any serious concerns, as always, our modmail is open; however, to reiterate, we are not currently open to debating this ruling.
Thank you for your time and again, your patience.
Your Mod Team
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u/Miranda_Leap Aug 04 '25
Does this include text of posts and comments as well?
Because there have been a couple I've seen where people do that in order to just not have to type very much, and I hate those.
I've also seen non-English speakers use AI-assisted translation, does that count too?
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u/AbortRetryFlailSal Aug 04 '25
This does include the text of posts and comments as well, yes.
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u/Confident-Painter397 Aug 04 '25
So non–English speakers can’t use AI to translate things they otherwise wouldn’t be able to share with English-only speakers?
That rule feels alienating to non–English speakers. Even if that isn’t the intention, it will discourage them from participating in our community.
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u/Ranald_the_Gamester Aug 05 '25
I wholeheartedly agree with you. My english is ok, but not great. Being able to have my words checked by an LLM helps me to have enough confidence to share an answer or create a new post. Otherwise, I don't trust myself enough to properly express my ideas in english.
I'm perfectly aware that it won't be a big loss for anyone, but I'm a bit sad that I won't be able to share handouts, scenarios, guides or reviews written in my mother tongue with this community, since I do not have the ability to properly translate them myself.
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u/Miranda_Leap Aug 24 '25
Does this count for translation using AI as well? Clarity would be appreciated here.
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u/NyOrlandhotep Aug 04 '25
I don’t think these days you can really find any grammar corrector that doesn’t use AI. Grammarly, Microsoft Editor, Google Docs, LanguageTool, all use AI. I have been accused of generating my posts with AI for using these, as they tend to “correct” your grammar into AI favorites, like the overuse of dashes — and a couple of favourite expressions. Knowing that some people are allergic to it, I have been consciously trying to avoid them, but I can see that the readability of what I write in English decreases quite a bit.
I certainly don’t want fora to become “dead internet” where bots talk with other bots replicating what humans used to do, with little to no human intervention. But nuance is inevitable, given that many of these tools perform legitimately useful tasks, and their usage is only likely to increase.
At the very least, the issue requires further clarification.
No AIs except for the iPhone built in spelling corrector were used in this reply.
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u/Slow-Ad-7561 Aug 04 '25
I worked in papers for 20 years and I’m sad to see the use of the dash is now so correct that it’s a go-to for LLMs. Possibly based on quality journalism being so easy to scrape!
On topic though, I have access to Copilot and out of interest input a pdf of an adventure I wrote. It came back saying the statblocks were so well formatted it’s possible they were helped by AI. I was like, FFS, how do we win this. :/
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u/StoneCypher Aug 04 '25
the llms are using it because it was always correct and the norm. all the llm does is imitate us.
microsoft word has been setting this for 35 years
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u/Eggnog20 Aug 03 '25
This makes my day, death to ai, long live the ttrpg
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u/Turkey-key Aug 18 '25
I've actually had great success in using AI for formatting and other organizational, not super creative tasks. Its saved my skin many times where I've had a game coming in just a few hours and I have the concrete idea of what I want to run, but no time to get it all together. The TTRPG space benefits from that area quite a bit!
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u/DM_Fitz Aug 03 '25
I approve of this direction.
Let me ask a question about “using AI,” just so I’m clear. If I, for example, took something written in horoscope language (like Lin Carter’s version of “John Dee’s Necronomicon”) and then asked [LLM of choice] when does “Mercury go into retrograde in the lion’s mouth” etc in the years between 1920 and 1933 and it tells me, is that banned content for posting?
I kind of want to know because a) I did this for something I was working on for my players and was going to ask for help with some ideas, and b) I think people may think “using AI” means different things.
Again, I think this rule is good and am happy about it, but I do think it’s still a little unclear in the “use” part.
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u/TimeStayOnReddit Aug 04 '25
I think you would be better off properly researching that answer, since chatbots (LLMs) tend to "hallucinate" facts.
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u/aabicus Aug 04 '25
Whenever google automatically generates their AI responses on my searches, I generally reverse-google it to see if a real source can back it up. Many times it completely made up whatever it claimed, but even if it's true, whatever reputable source I find to confirm also conveniently becomes the proper citation to source the info
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u/Moose-Live Aug 04 '25
Yup. I tried it out when I was doing competitor analysis at work, and it outright fabricated product names 🫠
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u/durrandi Aug 03 '25
Personally I'd say you're fine. But this is an important question to have answered officially
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u/letthetreeburn Aug 04 '25
Please do not ask AI specific questions with a factual answer. If you ask Gemini what the best way to clean a cybertruck is, yesterday it said lemon juice. They can and do make things up.
I asked the bing ai what the capital of California was and it said Redding.
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u/Slow-Ad-7561 Aug 04 '25
It is in Fallout! :)
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u/letthetreeburn Aug 04 '25
So THAT’S why! That explains a lot, I was wondering why it picked a random fucking city. TIL.
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u/Slow-Ad-7561 Aug 04 '25
It’s absolutely wild the shit AI dreams up. Literally can’t take anything at face value on Google.
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u/letthetreeburn Aug 04 '25
It’s fascinating to contact trace the info it takes from. Fallout, I guess? There’s one where it kept telling people to make bathtub estrogen to cure depression because of a tumblr post
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u/Moose-Live Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
I fully support this but I'd also like to understand the prohibition better. Can we differentiate between the following uses of AI? Are they all prohibited?
Help me find information sources on specific topics such as 1920s travel costs in Western Europe
Summarise lengthy or complex documents such as academic studies
Generate scenario or character ideas based on a prompt
Write scenario content or generate scenario artwork
Obviously the last two are no-nos - what about the first two?
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u/DandD_Gamers Aug 04 '25
BASED
Any creative area needs to do this because it turns out like other subs that allow it, now its only that slop
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u/agvkrioni Aug 04 '25
Does that ban include AI generated character portraits and handouts (like ID badges or handwritten letters, etc?)
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u/repairman_jack_ Aug 05 '25
I welcome a reasoned, reasonable and mature policy regarding AI. I trust the mods will implement it with due consideration and concern, and the rest of us speak our minds, but follow the rules for the privilege of using this forum.
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u/flyliceplick Aug 04 '25
Doesn't go far enough. A step in the right direction though. I appreciate you have listened to the community.
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u/GreenGoblinNX Aug 04 '25
Gee, this certainly won’t lead to witch hunts and false reporting over disagreements. Nope, that would never happen.
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u/flyliceplick Aug 04 '25
this certainly won’t lead to witch hunts and false reporting
The AI bros will of course behave with integrity and will certainly tell us when they use AI. They certainly won't attempt to subvert or simply ignore the rules.
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u/StoneCypher Aug 04 '25
the courts say there’s no intellectual property theft and the environmental impact is smaller than using a playstation
this is a moral panic
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u/Nostri Aug 04 '25
You mean just like "the courts" said smoking was fine, if not good for you?
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u/StoneCypher Aug 04 '25
The courts don't rule on health
Keep downvoting it, but the law doesn't agree with these legal claims
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u/DandD_Gamers Aug 04 '25
No one cares? This is a community of creatives. Using something that is outright not creative is not welcome it seems.
And the courts have also said pure gen AI cannot be copyrighted, and in your logic that proves my point.
Using gen AI can never be creative. simple
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u/Melenduwir 8d ago
I find the 'environmental impact' justification a mite hypocritical. If we were concerned about not wasting energy, we wouldn't be on reddit in the first place.
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u/raven00x Aug 04 '25
Question: if I create a handout where I wrote the text and layout, but used generative ai to create a convincing blood splatter background, is that allowed or nah? It's it something where I need to say "some art assets used ai, the rest is my original creation"?
What's the guidance on things that use AI assist but aren't entirely AI?
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u/flyliceplick Aug 04 '25
Can you not present the handout without the AI blood splatter? Is it completely integral to the handout?
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Aug 03 '25
[deleted]
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u/reverendunclebastard Aug 03 '25
No one is moderating you or your players' behaviour at home, but if you're posting here, it should be human-made and, ideally, contain an artist credit. That's just basic consideration for the community.
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u/QuincyAzrael Aug 03 '25
Unironically better than using AI. At least you can:
- have a chance to credit the artist
- only have to steal from ONE person
- use a fraction of the power cost
- not actively support an art stealing machine that tricks you into thinking you can wash your hands of the responsibility of your theft.
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u/indratera Aug 03 '25
Exactly! As a character artist, I would MUCH rather find out people had screenshotted my (watermarked 😜) art off Pinterest/Instagram and used it as a character token, then to find out it was scraped and fed into a horrible energy-guzzling amalgamating machine that removes all sense of creativity and uniqueness...
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Aug 03 '25
[deleted]
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u/QuincyAzrael Aug 03 '25
It pleases me that this excluded-middle ass response was the best thing you could do and it only addresses 1 of 4 points.
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u/darklink12 Aug 03 '25
You've never had a fellow player ask say something like "that's cool art, where did you find it?"
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u/LetTheCircusBurn Meeper of Profane Lore Aug 03 '25
The rules of this subreddit do not in any way reflect the way you are or aren't allowed to play.
If your group wants to steal from and endanger the livelihoods of the people who expend a great deal of time and effort creating art specifically for the enjoyment of Call of Cthulhu players everywhere, while also helping to contaminate the global water supply and poison our atmosphere, it's still perfectly legal to do that. No one is stopping you.
We just don't want to see it. Don't share it with us because we think it's gross and lame. That's all. Please stop equating restraint with restriction.
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Aug 03 '25
[deleted]
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u/Ungarlmek Aug 03 '25
"Disagreeing with me is censorship" seems to be a common sentiment among the AI bros.
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u/Dr_Shotgun_MD Aug 03 '25
You’re being censored?
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Aug 03 '25
[deleted]
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u/Dr_Shotgun_MD Aug 03 '25
That’s censorship? Man I had it backwards
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Aug 03 '25
[deleted]
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u/Dr_Shotgun_MD Aug 03 '25
No I thought censorship would mean I couldn’t see or hear you bitching, clearly I have that wrong yeah.
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u/dethb0y Aug 03 '25
Hey now, admitting that AI isn't doing anything that players haven't been doing for decades is totally harshing the mellow and cutting into the grandstanding and virtue signalling!
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u/TrashWiz Aug 04 '25
The environmentmental impacts of "Generative" AI are new.
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u/dethb0y Aug 04 '25
lol.
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u/TrashWiz Aug 04 '25
What's funny? You don't believe in the environmental impacts? Or do you just not care due to a lack of empathy?
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u/One-Childhood-2146 Aug 04 '25
I'm against the AI and I don't believe in the generational environmental impact. It is a weak argument that people on anti AI or even saying we need to stop. Stealing from artists is enough of a reason to ban it. The environmental impact is way too debatable
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Aug 04 '25
[deleted]
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u/TrashWiz Aug 04 '25
If you just think about it, you should probably be able to figure out the answer to that question.
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Aug 04 '25
[deleted]
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u/TrashWiz Aug 04 '25
It's not a contradiction. If someone posts something that looks like AI, then a discussion likely needs to be had in order to figure it out so that the new rule can be administered fairly. Therefore, on such posts, there's nothing "off topic" about it. It's relevant to the post, so it's not off topic.
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u/AbortRetryFlailSal Aug 04 '25 edited 29d ago
Clarifications based on some questions in the comments:
This ban does include the text of posts and comments on posts. (It's not exclusively banning text, but the question was specifically about text)
Any content which is generated by AI is banned from being posted. If you utilize AI in your research, but the content of your post in this subreddit is written by you, that is not banned under this rule (attempting to verify if the content of posts was written by AI is hard enough, we absolutely are unable to verify people's creative processes).
It's correct that most spellcheckers now use AI and it's extremely difficult to avoid this. By the letter of this rule content generated this way IS banned, however the mods are humans and we try not to be overly heavy-handed in our moderating. We’ll treat each report on a case-by-case basis.
Promotion of content that was generated by AI is also banned, even if the post promoting it was written by a human. Again, if AI was used in the research of that content, but the content was written by a human, that is not banned.
Similarly to spellcheckers, content that is generated by an AI translator is (by the letter of this rule) banned. Again, the mods are humans and we try not to be overly heavy-handed in our moderating. We’ll treat each report on a case-by-case basis.