Bringing AI to the Table: A TTRPG Guide

AI as a GM Assistant: Introduction

Running—or even just playing in—a tabletop RPG can be one of the most creatively fulfilling things you do. But it can also be a logistical beast.

If you're a new DM, a returning GM, a curious player, or someone dipping a toe into the world of TTRPGs, you've probably felt it: the pressure to prep, remember what happened last time, keep lore consistent, and somehow make each session more engaging than the last. Even when you love the story and your group's energy is great, the behind-the-scenes work can pile up fast.

Session recaps. NPC tracking. Plot threads that go cold. That one line of dialogue from three sessions ago that suddenly matters again. It's a lot.

That's where AI comes in. Not to replace the DM, but to serve as a notetaking assistant, lorekeeper, and organizational safety net. It's always on, never distracted, and makes sense of the chaos.

In this post, I'll walk through the key ways AI can enhance your TTRPG experience—whether you're a seasoned DM, a story-focused player, or someone who just wants a better way to stay organized. I'll share both the Theory of what AI can do and the Practice of how I personally use it and answers to some frequently asked questions.

1. Capturing a Transcript

Theory

A transcript is the raw record of everything that happened in your session—dialogue, decisions, descriptions, die rolls, and more. It's the foundation for nearly every way AI can assist you afterward.

You can record sessions in person using a smartphone or external recorder, or—if you're online—use a bot (like Craigbot on Discord) to capture audio automatically. Once you've got the audio, send it through a speech-to-text (STT) tool to convert it into readable text. That text becomes the fuel for recaps, entity tracking, highlights, and more.

Practice

For my online sessions, I use a Discord bot that records the session and includes speaker diarization (so I know who said what). The audio is automatically sent to a transcription provider, and within minutes, I have a clean, searchable transcript.

For in-person games, I use a decent podcast mic thanks to a generous friend—but honestly, any modern smartphone can do the job.

Once the session wraps, in only a few minutes I have a structured, searchable record of everything that happened—ready for recaps, lore tracking, and everything else that follows.

2. Custom Session Recaps

Theory

Once you have your session transcript, you can feed it into an AI model with a simple prompt to generate a recap in any style you want—dramatic, in-universe, bullet points, snarky narrator… you name it.

This gives you a fast, customizable refresher to help your group stay immersed in the story—even if it's been weeks since the last session.

Want to take it further and summarize an entire campaign? It's doable, but be aware: AI models have context limits—a cap on how much text they can process at once. If you try to summarize dozens of sessions in one go, the model might lose track of details or degrade in quality.

Practice

I use my go-to tool, Archivist, which automatically generates summaries from each session—no extra prompting needed. But if you're experimenting with ChatGPT or another LLM, you can upload your transcript and give it a targeted instruction like:

In about a minute, you'll have a solid first draft—something that's nearly ready to read aloud with just a few tweaks. What used to take me over an hour (seriously - but maybe thats just a "me" problem) now takes just a couple of minutes.

3. Auto-Tracking NPCs & Places

Theory

One of the most underrated powers of AI is entity extraction—automatically identifying key pieces of your world from a session transcript. That includes characters, factions, locations, items, and more.

Along with names, you can generate short descriptions and context for each entity, making it way easier to remember who said what, where something happened, or what your party picked up three sessions ago.

Practice

After I process a session, Archivist automatically pulls out every relevant entity and gives me a tidy list with summaries including their description and role in the story.

If you want to test this with a general LLM, just upload your transcript and try a prompt like:

When a player inevitably asks, "What was that guard's name at the gate?" or "Who took the potion of frost resistance in the cave?"—I don't have to fake it or flip through old notes.

It's especially helpful for on-the-fly NPCs. Like when your players suddenly strike up a conversation with a random bar patron—looking at you, Boblin the Goblin. AI captures and categorizes that improvised character so I can reference them again later... even if I barely remember making them up.

4. Highlighting Key Moments

Theory

AI can scan your session transcript and surface moments that stand out—emotional beats, plot twists, dramatic dice rolls, hilarious banter, or big reveals. These highlights are great for player engagement, "Previously on..." recaps, inspiration rewards, or just reliving the best moments from the session.

Practice

Archivist flags these moments automatically, and honestly, it's one of my favorite features. It's fun to revisit them later—whether that's sharing with the group or annoying my partner with out-of-context quotes.

You can replicate this with a basic LLM prompt like:

Whether it's a heartfelt goodbye with an NPC or your Tortle player shell-sliding down a snowy slope and ricocheting off two mountain giants (true story), AI helps bring those moments back to the surface so they don't get buried in the transcript.

One note: AI can surface a lot—but it doesn't know your preferences. I still go through the list to pick the ones that hit hardest for my table. You might choose totally different ones, and that's kind of the point—it's a tool, not a taste filter.

5. Future Session Planning with the Help of a Chatbot

Theory

Gross. Most chatbots are terrible (especially the ones pretending to help with your billing issue). But LLM chatbots? They're actually fantastic when it comes to TTRPG planning.

They can brainstorm story beats, test alternate paths, or explore "what if" scenarios based on your campaign's current state. Want to play out the fallout from a missed clue, or simulate how an NPC might react to player choices? Chatbots can help you map out those possibilities—without spoiling anything for your players.

Practice

6. In-Game Extras

Theory

One of the easiest ways to deepen immersion is by adding in-world artifacts—things like letters, wanted posters, bard songs, or old journal pages. The issue is that writing those from scratch can be a time sink, especially when they're flavor pieces or one-off props.

AI can help you generate this kind of content in the tone, voice, and aesthetic of your world. With just a sentence or two of setup, you can create something flavorful that feels like it belongs in your setting—without burning an hour on a fake flyer no one reads twice.

These little touches make the world feel lived-in, reactive, and full of stories beyond the immediate quest.

Practice

A simple prompt goes a long way. For example:

I've also used AI to draft song lyrics for a bard's tavern performance, create newspaper headlines reporting on the party's chaos, format letters and scrolls for players to find during exploration and will pair with image generation tools to show what an item, or symbol actually looks like.

Frequently Asked Questions