Why Your AI Game Master Keeps Playing Your Character

In my experience of trying to make one work, an AI game master plays your character because a chatbot writes to move the story forward, and the quickest way forward is often to decide what your character does next. Telling the GM to stop works for a while and then wears off. A clear boundary, restated each session and backed by quoting every slip, keeps your character in your hands: the GM narrates the world, ends each reply where your character would act, and settles nothing you didn't state.

This post is part of our guide, Can an AI Be a Good Game Master?.

What Does It Look Like When an AI GM Takes Over?

An AI game master that takes over your character writes your lines, choices and feelings for you, then carries on as if you'd written them. In a forum thread titled "ChatGPT is not a Good DM", one player reported that the AI had to some degree taken control of their character. PC Gamer's report on AI GMs describes a chatbot GM that tried "to wrap up an entire combat in a single reply."

The big takeovers are easy to spot. You draw your sword, and the reply has your character cut down the first goblin, dodge the second and shout a challenge at the third, with the fight over before you've rolled once.

The small ones do as much damage over a campaign. Your character's heart pounds, a smile crosses their face, they decide the stranger can be trusted. Each of those lines is the GM choosing who your character is. A few replies like that and you're reading a story about someone who shares your character's name.

There's a quieter version too. A reply that ends "Do you take the left tunnel, the right tunnel, or go back?" hands you a menu. Your character might have wanted to listen at the walls, or set fire to the rope bridge, and the menu has already narrowed the world to three doors.

Why Does an AI GM Keep Doing It?

In my experience, an AI game master keeps playing your character because the habit comes from what a chatbot does well: writing a complete, satisfying passage of story. A scene feels finished when the hero acts, so the model supplies the action. An instruction to leave the character alone works against that habit, and the longer the conversation runs, the more ground the habit wins back.

I tried for a long time to make an AI GM work, and this was one of the failures I could never fix with instructions. Each time I told the GM to leave my character alone, it obeyed for a few replies, and then my character was speaking for themselves again.

Holding the boundary is a judgement on every sentence: does this line describe the world, or does it decide something about the player's character? I've watched a chatbot GM make that call well at the start of a conversation and less reliably as the story fills up. I think it's the same weakness that makes AI GMs forget, which Why AI Game Masters Forget Your Campaign looks at in more depth.

How Do You Stop an AI GM Playing Your Character?

To stop an AI game master playing your character, state the boundary in positive terms, ask for every reply to end where your character would decide, take fights one beat at a time, and correct each slip by quoting it. Each step works with any tool.

• Say what the GM narrates. Put it plainly at the start: "You describe the world and play everyone in it. My character's words, actions, thoughts and feelings come from me."
• Say where each reply ends. Ask the GM to end every reply at the moment your character would decide, with the question left open and no list of options.
• Ask for one beat at a time in a fight. Ask the GM to narrate up to the next point where your character acts, so a combat moves turn by turn and you make every roll.
• Quote the line when it slips. Copy the exact sentence where your character acted, and ask for the reply again, ending before that sentence. A specific correction is easier to follow than a general reminder.
• Restate the boundary at the start of each session. The instruction fades in a long conversation, so open every session with it.

Does Fable Smith Leave Your Character to You?

Fable Smith leaves your character to you: the GM narrates the world and everyone in it, never settles an action you didn't state, and ends every post where you'd decide, with no menu of options.

Fable Smith is vivid where it matters: a world that moves, and a GM who knows what to show you. You draw your sword, and the post shows you the first goblin's spear coming up and the second slipping round behind the cart. It doesn't swing your sword, give you a battle cry or tell you your heart is pounding, because all of that is yours.

• The GM never speaks, acts, thinks or feels for your character. That covers the small lines too, such as a pounding heart or a smile.
• You roll, and the roll stands. When a moment calls for a test, the GM asks for the roll and waits. You can press the Roll button under its post, use the /test command, which fills in your modifiers from your character sheet in 5e and Draw Steel, or use the Discord dice bot you already have. The result is judged by the rules, and it isn't softened.
• You can post as your character. Characters get portraits, and you can post under your character's own name and picture.
• You rarely need to correct it. When the GM does slip, it owns the mistake in the game and puts it right.

Today you play on your own, with the GM in your own Discord channel. Fable Smith is in a free closed beta. It's slow, since a turn can take minutes, and it still makes mistakes sometimes.

If you'd like a quick way to test any AI GM on this, the first of our six questions to test any AI game master is built for it. A GM that keeps its hands off your character also has to keep its secrets, and Why AI Game Masters Can't Keep a Secret covers that side.

Want a GM that plays the whole world and leaves your character to you? Join the waitlist for the free closed beta on the Fable Smith page.

Sources

• D&D Beyond forums, ChatGPT is not a Good DM, for a player's report that the AI took some control of their character.
• PC Gamer, Jody Macgregor, Generative AI is dividing RPG fans, 25 October 2024, for a chatbot GM trying to wrap up a whole fight in a single reply.
• The Forge & The Fable, Fable Smith, for every claim about Fable Smith.