It's easy to look at the name AI Dungeon and think of AI Dungeon Master. A lot of people might assume it runs Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition or has some kind of tabletop RPG ruleset that it follows. The truth is, AI Dungeon doesn't run D&D 5e, so it really isn't the AI Dungeon Master you're looking for. One of the features of AI Dungeon is that it does not have any rules that the AI is bound by or has to follow. I've been a Dungeon Master for over 10 years, and I remember looking for an AI that could run any kind of tabletop system. I would casually search around once or twice a month, looking for an AI that could do it. I stumbled across AI Dungeon, Character.ai, and a few others that were early in development, but nothing had D&D 5e rules.
About a year and a half ago, I started playing Baldur's Gate 3, and my search came to an end temporarily. I reached 500 hours in just a few months and had absolutely enjoyed playing, but I ran into a roadblock. I knew all the dialog and story paths by then, and there was nowhere left to go that I hadn't thoroughly explored. I had wished that I could take the character from Baldur's Gate 3 and go on a real D&D 5e adventure with them, but, no offense to my close friend group, I don't think any of my players could perform the cast of Baldur's Gate 3 in a way that would feel like the game. I hopped on the internet and did a little searching, and I came across Friends & Fables, the only generative TTRPG platform I could find. I scrolled around the worlds and realized that my discovery was the beginning of a new addiction.
Now I'm not speaking ill of the other AIs out there that do text roleplay. I found that a lot of them are very good at what they do. It's just that none of them really hit the TTRPG itch that a dungeon master like me looks for. I've found that a lot of AIs are really good at role-playing stories and characters and backgrounds, but a lack of rules means I'm co-writing a choose your own adventure game where there are only consequences if I want them to happen. This is definitely okay for most people, but I'd like a character sheet with stats that determine my chances of passing or failing checks. To me, that adds far more to an adventure and makes me want to play more to level up and get better. In this blog, I'll be going over a checklist of what a true AI game master needs to have to satisfy the TTRPG needs most current AI RPG platforms currently can't.
Here's a quick list of what people expect from an "AI Dungeon Master":
Let's break this list down a little bit. I want to start off by talking about RPG rules. When I think of an AI Dungeon Master or an AI Game Master, I immediately think that it's an AI that allows me to play what I want, but I have to follow a set of rules to determine the outcome of my choices. I like this a lot because it means that there's growth for my character to become better. But it also means that there are consequences to my actions. I want to see that there is actual weight behind my choices. Instead of telling the AI that I pick a lock with a toothpick, I'd like to see how well my character can roll to accomplish that kind of action. Other AIs will just tell you you were able to do it, or you weren't able to do it. They wouldn't have any game state information about your character to pull from to make this kind of determination. It's important to have game state information to really scratch that TTRPG itch. You want to have character sheets, you want to have your HP tracked, and you want to have an inventory with items that you've collected along the way. When you're traveling, you want to be able to see new locations, and you want to be able to travel through vast open spaces. You want to see conditions on your character or conditions applied to enemies. These are some things that I look for when I'm thinking about an AI Dungeon Master or an AI Game Master. Many current AI RPG platforms only offer a few of these, which feels incomplete when I want the whole experience. Something unique that I also don't see any other AI RPG platform support is maps and tokens. It means a lot for me to visually see my character move across a map and interact with other characters or monsters. To be able to see a character drop an item and that item appear on the map that you are playing on. Or when your character is traveling vast distances and you see the map change to a world map with distances being calculated by kilometers instead of feet. As I've mentioned before, I've been dungeon mastering for over 10 years, and I would never miss an opportunity to create a battle map for a possible interaction or fight. When I've been a player, I would love to see the maps other dungeon masters would create. Moving my character's token around on a map to explore and interact is an experience that is hard to recreate. Something that most AIs are able to do pretty well across the board is keep track of story and lore. This doesn't change between many of the AIs that are available. I think the only thing that changes is what is fed into the AI RPG platforms. What they can see and what they are instructed to do. Aside from that, they keep track of everyone's story and lore pretty evenly across the board. At least from what I've experienced. I do have to give credit where credit is due and point out NovelAI. When it comes to continuity and story, NovelAI does an excellent job and might very well be seated above the rest in this area. It does lack some of the spontaneous, game-like, improv-style responses that other AI platforms have to offer, but it's one worth mentioning for someone not looking for an "AI Dungeon Master" experience. Party play, or multiplayer, is another issue that some AI RPG platforms struggle with. One of the first platforms to offer a true multiplayer experience is AI Dungeon. Other AI RPG platforms that offer a good multiplayer experience are Friends & Fables and Hidden Door. Even though you have an AI to accompany you on your journey, sometimes it's nice to bring a real friend along to help keep the story moving in a more human way. This is also important for people who really enjoy classic tabletop roleplay games. These games are meant to be played with other people, not just alone. Of course you can play them alone, but that takes a lot of the fun out of it. An "AI Dungeon Master" is also expected to be able to create quests, NPCs, items, monsters, and locations. This is something that many AI RPG platforms can do already, but some of them do it in different ways. When I'm looking for a TTRPG experience, I'm looking for NPCs, items, and monsters that follow some kind of basic RPG rules. They should have stats attributed to them or descriptions of the items that show what they could do. The monsters should have abilities or attacks that are unique to them. NPCs, instead of just having descriptions for appearances, personalities, and backstories, should have classes and races that give them different bonuses or skills. Every AI RPG will be able to generate quests and locations for the players, but not all of them will be able to generate NPCs, items, and monsters beyond just the basic description.
Here's some good news if you're a TTRPG lover like myself. Friends & Fables is an AI RPG platform that hits everything on the checklist. On their home page it says, "Friends & Fables is an AI RPG platform for building and playing DnD 5e inspired campaigns." For anyone who plays Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition, playing a game on Friends & Fables will give you a similar experience. Remember though, this doesn't take the place of an actual Dungeon Master or Game Master for your TTRPGs. Franz is that AI that runs your games on Friends & Fables. What Franz does best is provide an AI RPG experience that has rules, dice rolls, and stats, while still offering similar text RPG-style gameplay that other AI RPG platforms offer.
Franz, the AI Game Master, runs 5e mechanics for skill checks, saving throws, items, monsters, and spells. He has automatic tracking for inventory, locations, HP, conditions, and more. He also has long-term searchable memory, searchable lore pages, and custom instructions to guide the way he runs your games. He can dungeon master for up to 6 players, run quests, generate NPCs, keep track of your locations, and update your character sheets. Playing on Friends and Fables also gives you access to a full world-building suite, which has AI generators for characters, monsters with balanced CR, items, spells, locations, and map tools, with everything compatible with fifth edition mechanics. All of this, and more, is what brought me to Friends & Fables. Who knows? Maybe it might bring you here too.