Using ChatGPT as a game master: what works

Can ChatGPT be a game master?

Yes. Ask a general chat assistant such as ChatGPT to run a role-playing game and it will describe a scene, play the people in it, and respond to what you do. For a one-evening adventure, that is often enough. For a campaign that lasts weeks, you need to give it some structure, because a chat assistant is built to answer messages, not to keep a game.

A setup that works

Before the first scene, tell it five things in one message:

1. The world, in a sentence or two. Genre, tone, and one thing that makes it yours.
2. Your character. A name, what they do, and one thing they want.
3. The rules. Name a system you know, or keep it simple: when an outcome is in doubt, roll a twenty-sided die, add a bonus for what the character is good at, and compare it to a difficulty.
4. The division of labor. It plays the world and everyone in it. You play your character. It never decides what your character says, thinks or does.
5. What to keep out. Any themes you don't want in the story.

Five habits that keep a campaign on track

• Roll your own dice. Use real dice or a dice app and report the number. Then you know the roll happened, and a bad roll stays bad.
• Ask it to say no. Chat assistants tend to go along with the person they're talking to. Tell it that plans can fail, people can refuse, and prices are real.
• Keep a campaign sheet. In a long conversation, early details can drop out. At the end of each session, ask for a summary: where you are, who you've met and what they think of you, what you carry, what is unresolved. Paste it in at the start of the next one.
• Track numbers yourself. Health, money and inventory drift when nobody writes them down. Keep them in the campaign sheet.
• Give people their own goals. Ask what each important character wants and what they are hiding. The world gets better when someone in it disagrees with you.

Where a dedicated game does more

Everything in the list above is bookkeeping, and you are the one doing it. A game built around an AI game master does that part for you. In Orpheus:

• The setup is built in. A short setup takes your world and character, and every campaign opens with Session Zero, a talk with the game master about the story you want.
• The game rolls the dice. Rules come from SRD 5.2. When an action could go either way, you roll, and the result shapes what happens next. Fights use initiative, real rolls and death saves.
• The campaign keeps itself. Come back tomorrow and it's all still there. The people you met remember how you treated them.
• People have their own minds. They want things, keep secrets, and lie when it suits them.
• It looks and sounds like a game. Scenes play on a visual-novel stage with backdrops, portraits and music. On a plan, art is painted for your world and characters speak aloud.

Which should you use?

Use a chat assistant if you want a quick one-shot, enjoy running the bookkeeping, or want to use a rule system of your own. Use a dedicated game if you want a campaign that lasts, dice you can trust, and a world that pushes back without being told to. Orpheus is single-player, in English, and plays in a browser. A free account gets a daily allowance of story turns and three campaigns.

More on playing alone in the solo RPG guide, on choosing a game in the AI RPG guide, and on the details of play in the help center.

ChatGPT is a trademark of OpenAI. Orpheus is not affiliated with or endorsed by OpenAI.