How This Game Works
Solo Roleplaying with an AI Dungeon Master
At its heart, Korvosa: Rules and Ruin is a story—a personal, evolving narrative told through a blend of creative writing and tabletop roleplaying. But unlike a novel, it’s not plotted ahead of time. And unlike a traditional game, there’s only one human player.
This is a solo RPG, played between one person (the player) and a language model—ChatGPT, acting as the Dungeon Master (DM).
So... how does that work?
If you’ve ever played Dungeons & Dragons or a similar game, you know that the DM describes the world, plays every other character, and responds to your decisions with consequences, events, and surprises.
In this campaign, ChatGPT fills that role.
The human player (me) controls one main character: Kaelus Shade, a criminal strategist navigating the politics and underworld of the city of Korvosa. I choose what Kaelus says and does. The AI responds as the world.
There are no scripts. No re-rolls. No do-overs. Every scene is built in real time—written line by line, like a conversation—using nothing but storytelling and shared imagination.
What makes it a game?
There are still rules—but they live behind the scenes.
I use a loose version of the Pathfinder tabletop ruleset to define what’s possible. Kaelus has abilities, strengths, weaknesses. The AI uses these to decide whether Kaelus succeeds or fails, and how hard the world pushes back.
The AI doesn’t fudge the story to be nice. It offers real resistance. Allies disagree. Enemies scheme. Kaelus can fail—and often does. That’s what makes it meaningful.
What makes it different?
Most solo games feel like journaling. This one feels like living inside a novel.
Because the story is told through immersive narrative prose—like a book—you get to read the campaign, chapter by chapter. You’ll meet characters, watch arcs unfold, and see decisions ripple across the city. Every post you read here is a direct result of that dynamic play: one player, one AI, and a world that reacts.
Why show this?
Because this is a new kind of storytelling—and a personal experiment.
Korvosa: Rules and Ruin is a passion project, born from the question: What happens when you ask an AI to be a Game Master?
The answer: it’s not perfect—but it’s surprisingly close.
AI isn’t quite ready to run a published adventure out of the box. You can’t just plug in a rulebook and expect a fully automated, human-level GM experience. But if you're willing to work with it, to shape the tone, to nudge it toward the kind of game you want to play—it gets shockingly good.
It remembers. It improvises. It builds characters with goals, tension, and flaws. It doesn’t always get things right, but it adapts. And in the hands of a player who can steer the narrative while still being surprised, it becomes something unique: a living, responsive world shaped by collaborative storytelling.
This campaign is here to show what that looks like—not someday, but now.
And to see how far a solo game can go when the dungeon master never sleeps.