I actually came to ask about AI. I was watching a YT video where the guy had used Midjourney to create custom portraits for a game he was playing, and the results were great. So I tried it myself. Not Midjourney because I'm cheap, and most AI art sites that claim to be free demand money and/or an account after just a few images, if they let you make any at all.
Along with making NPC portraits better than ThisPersonDoesNotExist, it's handy for getting specific scenes to show my players. eg. I made a missing person poster with an AI generated sketch. I've not used it in game yet, but I want to ask Kiwis if they have tried it, and what use AI could have for enhancing the game.
I have not used AI image generation yet, mostly because I'm lazy. Its something I'm definitely interested in working with.
I disagree. In my setting I either ignore, remove, or downplay race problems. It's boring and cheap conflict that adds little or nothing to the game after the first 30 seconds when the inn keeper looks at the elf funny then never mentions it again. It needs to be ignored for almost all adventures to work.
The only setting that made "racism" work was Eberron and the hatred for warforged, which makes complete sense since they're constructs. Going to a warforged bar in the slums is an interesting encounter since instead of drinks and food, they are full of carnival games and novel stimulation. It enhances the setting and the game, instead of dragging it down and adding little.
I used to do a lot more racial animosity in my campaigns, but with Sharpton-types back in full bait-and-jive mode for nearly the past decade, its nearly impossible to have any real racial friction without unintended real-world parallels coming up.
I usually have the usual racial attitudes. In general, people don't like high-elves because they are usually elitist assholes but the problem people have with the is the elves is they are elitist, so any elf that isn't elitist is just treated as a human who doesn't need to sleep.
In my current campaign, I have a majority Dwarven city (the largest power in the backwater region the party is in) who distrusts the closest human regional power (with some justification; in the empire's collapse they generally told the everyone in this back water area "lol good luck, maybe abandon your homes, get everyone on boats and come here" when they needed help against a big orc invasion). The local human powers have river access to the regional power so closer ties, and so don't see the issue with allowing a Paladin brigade permission to enter and set up a fortified abbey - its Paladins of a good god, they report to the church not the royalty, and as trained professional soldiers they'll be able deal with monster threats better than the local militia and ad-hoc adventurer bands.
So there's some friction, but its not really racial, its more economic; half of the issue with the human power getting involved is the main city has a significant Dwarf population and craftsmen - if mine output gets directed there, they could out compete the local dwarf haven.
The Dwarves cry racism and say they are egalitarian, but they aren't much better - they are just merchantile and all the guilds with any say in the city's operation are headed by Dwarves; they have women leaders but its all women from the wealthiest families. etc.
Really the whole point is to set up a believable conflict, where no one's "right", everyone has legitimate greivances, (and also because the Party is learning that someone in the Backwater Council might be a bad guy), and everyone has some goals in common (ie no leader the region want to be the fief of a Court over a month by overland travel away), but more importantly - its a pretty solvable situation, with many solutions that are easily negotiated between those involved, so if the party is interested they can get involved and
make everything a hundred times worse because that's what players do solve problem with a solution that seems most fair for them and feel important.
