What is an AI game master?

What a game master does

In a tabletop role-playing game, every player runs one character except the game master. The game master runs everything else: the world, the weather, the shopkeeper who overcharges you, the guard who almost believes your story, the thing in the cellar. They describe each scene, listen to what you want to do, and tell you what happens next.

They keep the rules, too. When an outcome is in doubt, they call for a roll and judge the result. When a fight breaks out, they run the other side. Between sessions, they remember who owes you money and who you insulted.

It's the best seat at the table and the hardest job. It's also why so many campaigns stall: when the game master can't make it, nobody plays.

How Orpheus runs the table

Orpheus gives that job to an AI. You bring a world and a character. The game master brings everything else.

• It starts with a conversation. Every new campaign opens with Session Zero: a short talk with the game master about your character and the kind of story you want, before the adventure starts.
• You act in your own words. Most scenes end on a few choices written for that moment. Pick one, or switch to typing on the web and describe what you do. The game master works with whatever you write.
• The rules are real. They come from SRD 5.2, the openly licensed tabletop rules. When an action could go either way, the game master calls for a dice roll, and the result shapes what happens next. You don't need to know any of it to play.
• People have their own minds. Everyone you meet wants something, remembers how you treated them, and makes their own choices. They gossip, keep secrets, and lie when it suits them. Some can be taken aside to talk in private.
• Fights have teeth. Initiative, real rolls and death saves. Follow the fight in the story, or flip to a tactical board and move your pieces yourself.
• The campaign keeps going. Come back tomorrow and it's all still there: your friends, your rivals, the trouble you started. Open the history to reread earlier scenes.
• It looks like a game. Scenes play on a visual-novel stage, with backdrops and portraits. Free accounts draw on the Orpheus art library. On a plan, scenes and portraits are generated for your world as you play, every character speaks in a voice of their own, and music is made for your scenes.

What you decide, and what it decides

You decide the world, the tone, and who your character is. A short setup asks for a campaign name, a genre, a tone and a setting, anything the game master should keep in mind, and how challenging it should feel. Tell it the themes you want and the ones to keep out. Start from a blank page or from a preset world you change.

The game master decides what the world does back. It plays your premise at the intensity you wrote it, so a farce stays funny and a horror story stays frightening. The world bends to your ideas, within its own rules: you can try anything, and it tells you what it costs.

What it isn't

• Not a chat log. You play on a stage: narration, dialogue and the characters in the scene, with the dice and the fights handled by the game.
• Not a group game. Orpheus is single-player: you, the companions you meet along the way, and the game master. Here's how solo play works.
• Not in every language. Orpheus is in English.
• Not perfect. It's an AI, and AI output can be wrong or inappropriate. You can report a scene from Settings, and the Content & Safety Policy lists what is never allowed.
• Not for everyone. Orpheus is for adults 18 and older.

Where to start

Bring a sentence. A courtroom drama where the defendant is a dragon. A dead warship that still thinks the war is on. A diner where the regulars are werewolves. The worlds page has more by genre, and the help center covers the details of play.

Comparing options? The AI RPG guide has seven questions to ask of any game like this, and there's a guide to using ChatGPT as a game master if you'd like to try that first.