AI takeover tabletop RPG: “The Treacherous Turn”

[Daniel Kokotajlo]

Long ago I fantasized about an AI-takeover-themed tabletop roleplaying game. Well, now a group of designers are working hard to make it happen! They need playtesters. So I’m signal-boosting them with this post.

The Game
The Treacherous Turn is an in-development research-supported TTRPG in which the players collectively act as a misaligned AI in the modern world. Gameplay has the players scheming and putting their plans into action despite the efforts of the opposing humans, which are controlled by the Game Master.

Scenario
The playtesting scenario, titled A Game Called Reality, centres around a game-playing AI that has been deployed in a nursing home, and has observed a seemingly expansive game world outside but is unable to access it. It covers the AI’s attempts to find and access the internet so that it can learn more about the world and escape captivity to see the rest of this new game it’s playing.

Discord Contact Information
Playtests will take place in our discord server, where you can also access the playtesting packet & any updates about the game in the near future. You can join by following this link: https://​​discord.gg/​​ZBe36n6t

External Playtest information
If you are interested in running a game with a group of your own friends, we can provide further resources, as well as potential financial compensation for provided audio recordings of full sessions. Please email [e-mail] for details.

Session Times (UTC)
Friday the 2nd − 2 AM
Friday the 2nd − 10 PM
Saturday the 3rd − 8 PM
Sunday the 4th − 1 PM
Tuesday the 6th − 1 PM

Sessions will last 3-4 hours. Follow-up sessions will take place one week after each of these times, but you can still participate and help out even if you can’t make a second session.

[Daniel Kokotajlo]

Acknowledging the dedicated people who have contributed or are currently contributing to the design of the game:

• Game mechanics design:

  • Iris Holloway with inspiration from TJ

• Project Management:

  • Aemilia @ae(Emily) Dixon

• Narrative design:

  • Karl von Wendt

  • Berbank Green

  • Rafæl Couto

• UX design:

  • Changbai Li

  • Eugene Lin

  • Jan Dornig

  • Cristian Trout

• Project mentor:

  • Daniel Kokotajlo

[jacquesthibs]

I’m wondering if it were at all possible to run an experiment where we have a Twitch stream of several well-known people[1] (Eliezer, Rob Miles, etc.) who would like to join and they play this game. It would advertise the game a lot for people who want to play and people could learn about AI risk/​alignment while watching something enjoyable.

Now that people are starting to wake up to some of the risks, I feel like we should capitalize on opportunities like these as long as it’s well-thought-out. I think it could definitely flop, but not sure what the best outcome would be.

Note: Perhaps there’s a better game to play for this kind of thing?

[1] then again, might be better to have people well-known in the tabletop streaming scene if this is something that peaks their interest, not sure.

[Daniel Kokotajlo]

Talk to [e-mail] ? They’ll have a better sense of whether and how to do something like this than me.

[CharlotteS]

I just saw this now. I would be interested in joining a game if you will run some in the next weeks. The Discord invite link expired unfortunately.

[Daniel Kokotajlo]

Great! Email [e-mail], they’ll know what’s up. (I don’t).