If you’re just looking to get started with 3d modeling, it’s hard to beat Blender. At the cost of free, it’s by far the most affordable way to dip your toes in some modeling tools.

For many workflows it’s world class. If you plan to do more organic forms or don’t need technical precision, then it’s very competitive or preferable to paid software.

You might find it lacking if you plan to do parametric or technical CAD-style modeling. Even then, I think Blender can be a low cost way to learn what you want in your software before investing in more specialized software. You’ll learn enough of the modeling basics to more fluently navigate what other software provides.

To some people, yes. To others, no. You’re replying to specific people who seem to be against the idea, and I’m guessing for them it detracts significantly from the experience.

At the end of the day all of the concepts we have in fantasy are derivative in some regard, so the line will vary just like it will vary for people that want to do total homebrew vs following a book.

My group dabbled with AI when it was at its peak buzz, and if I’m honest, my head cannon sort of ignores those bits. They don’t carry the same authenticity that I came to expect from my group. It detracts from my experience because I play ttrpgs primarily to learn about my friends and how they’ve interpreted a shared world, not to hear algorithmically mid fanfic. I’m also not crazy about following a book. With a book, at least I know someone willfully released the work into the world and is getting appropriately compensated.

These are not the same. Here are some of the ways someone may be fine with reusing existing material while being against AI:

• Someone may value thoughtful and coherent world building, while feeling like the AI generated amalgamation dilutes the cohesiveness of the material.
• Someone can be for public sharing of ideas, while simultaneously against AI companies disregarding licenses attached to those ideas to build AI products.
• Someone can value the personality and individual perspective that a content author or DM injects into material and feel that AI-generated material lacks this character.

Don’t reduce the use of AI down to the reuse of material. It also averages out material into some sort of lowest common denominator - sacrificing exactly the things that many niche fandoms value: personality and imagination.

I don’t want to detract anything from this tram photo, but I also know that with all the content floating around in the internet these days it’s easy to build unrealistic tram expectations.

I think this is two trams, each on their own line. Notice how the roof line steps down and the window reflections seem to change halfway through. I think they’re just very conveniently aligned for the photo to make it look like one double length tram.