AI GM Tools Compared: Who Does the GMing?

AI game master tools differ most in how they split the GM's job between the AI and the player. Friends & Fables lets the player edit its AI game master's notes and correct him. Aeveth says it applies the rules faithfully and keeps a persistent memory, and Soliloquest has the player steer with oracle rolls. A general chatbot leaves most of the job to the player, and Fable Smith shapes the adventure around your answers, picks your campaign up where you left off and keeps its secrets yours to find, though it still makes mistakes sometimes.

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

How Do the AI GM Tools Compare Side by Side?

Any job an AI GM tool leaves undone falls to the player, so the fairest comparison goes job by job. The table sets five tools against four of the GM's jobs, using only each tool's own pages and published reports. We make Fable Smith, so weigh its row with that in mind, and test any tool yourself with the six questions in Can an AI Run Your Solo Campaign?.

Which AI GM Tool Suits You?

The AI game master tool that suits you depends on which of the GM's jobs you're happy to do yourself. If you like seeing the GM's plan and editing its notes, Friends & Fables offers that. Aeveth offers three tiers if you want to choose how much of the dice and rules you see. If you enjoy oracle-driven play and want a book of your campaign, Soliloquest is built for that. For a chatbot, the habits in Why Your AI Game Master Lets Every Plan Work will take you a good way. If you'd rather the GM did the GMing and left you to play, we built Fable Smith for you.

How Does Friends & Fables Split the Job?

Friends & Fables has an AI game master called Franz, and it shares much of his working state with the player. Since Franz 2.0, players can open and edit his working context, "a shared notepad between you and Franz" that includes a running plot summary. When a player corrects Franz, he saves the instruction, and his plan for each turn is shown in the message's thoughts.

Friends & Fables says Franz remembers long-term details, and its own feedback note says players' complaints are "primarily around memory + planning". World builders write the quests, and the 2.0.1 notes warn that "prolonged arguments and corrections will tend to make the experience worse".

My view, from a long time spent trying to make AI GMs work, is that when you're the one editing the GM's notes and correcting its mistakes, you're doing the GMing, and what's left is an AI that's pretending to GM. Players who enjoy sharing that control may prefer it, and that's a fair choice.

How Does a General Chatbot Split the Job?

A general chatbot told to be the GM leaves the player to supply the adventure, the rules, the memory and the corrections. Anthropic's documentation says a model's accuracy and recall degrade as the text grows. PC Gamer reported of one chatbot GM that "It would forget what had happened if you played for too long", and on a forum thread titled "ChatGPT is not a Good DM", a player wrote that "the AI to some degree took control of my character".

What Does Aeveth Say It Does?

Aeveth, formerly Taleweaver, is an AI game master built on Anthropic's Claude, taking early-access sign-ups and made for adults. Its How It Plays page leads with "A rigorous Game Master, not a chatbot that plays pretend." It says every roll comes from a true randomness source, each character has a distinct voice, the rules are read live and applied faithfully, and persistent memory means it never forgets. You choose one of three tiers, from story only to full mechanical detail, and you set the content limits.

What Does Soliloquest Say It Does?

Soliloquest, formerly Mythmaker, calls itself a "Solo AI roleplaying game" with an AI Storyteller. Outcomes come from the Ironsworn family of oracle tables: you steer with oracle rolls and moves, and the Storyteller writes the campaign up as prose you can download as an EPUB or as Markdown. You pay as you go with $5, $10 or $25 packs of credits, and there's no subscription.

What Does the AI Game Master App Say It Does?

AI Game Master – Dungeon RPG, a phone app for iOS and Android by Digital Dynasty Entertainment, bills itself as "a dungeon master in your pocket" and advertises Deep Memory. We've checked only those claims, so it isn't in the table.

How Does Fable Smith Split the Job?

Fable Smith's GM takes on the GM's jobs, in Discord, while you play your character. Fable Smith is vivid where it matters: a world that moves, and a GM who knows what to show you. Walk past a frightened clerk to chase a thief, and the clerk's trouble carries on without you, so it has grown by the time you come back.

• Adventures are made for you. Each one is shaped by what you told it you enjoy and what you want less of, and there's still surprise in it.
• It remembers, and it keeps its secrets. The people you've met remember what you promised and what you owe, and the adventure's secrets stay hidden until you find them by playing, as Why AI Game Masters Can't Keep a Secret explains.
• Your character and your dice stay yours. The GM never speaks, acts, thinks or feels for your character, and you roll your own dice, with a result that stands.
• 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.

Want a GM that does the GMing and leaves you to play? Join the waitlist for the free closed beta on the Fable Smith page.

Sources

• Friends & Fables, home page, for Franz as its AI game master.
• Friends & Fables, What makes the Friends & Fables AI game generator so good, for its claim that Franz remembers long-term details.
• Friends & Fables, Franz 2.0 patch notes, for the editable working context, the saved corrections, the release date and the removal of on-the-fly quest generation.
• Friends & Fables, Patch Notes 25.39, for Franz's plan shown in each message's thoughts and players' complaints about memory and planning.
• Friends & Fables, Franz 2.0.1, for the warning about prolonged arguments and corrections.
• Friends & Fables help centre, Introduction, for play centred on user-created worlds.
• Digital Dynasty Entertainment, AI Game Master, for "a dungeon master in your pocket".
• Apple, App Store listing for AI Game Master – Dungeon RPG, for the app, its maker and its Deep Memory feature.
• Aeveth, How It Plays, for Aeveth as an AI game master built on Anthropic's Claude, at early-access sign-up and for adults, its headline, its dice, character voices, rules, persistent memory, three tiers and player-set content limits.
• Soliloquest, home page, for its description as a solo AI roleplaying game with an AI Storyteller, the Ironsworn family of oracle tables, oracle rolls and moves, the EPUB and Markdown write-up, and its pay-as-you-go credit packs.
• PC Gamer, Jody Macgregor, Generative AI is dividing RPG fans, 25 October 2024, for a chatbot GM forgetting what had happened.
• TechRadar, Matt Evans, As a human D&D Dungeon Master, AI will never replace me, 2 August 2026, for ChatGPT not seeding a mystery's clues.
• D&D Beyond forums, ChatGPT is not a Good DM, for a chatbot GM taking control of a player's character.
• Anthropic, Context windows, for how much text a language model can read at once and for accuracy and recall degrading as that text grows.
• The Forge & The Fable, Fable Smith, for every claim about Fable Smith.