The tabletop Dungeon Master

This article's status describes its scope. See development status for current limits.

See recorded dialogue and social-check screenshots →

A first-of-its-kind ambition: an AI Dungeon Master woven into an immense first-person RPG and an autonomous world simulation. Bring your own words, intentions, and ideas to a campaign whose people and history have a life of their own.

A tabletop session inside a living world#

The ambition is the freedom and responsiveness of a human-run tabletop campaign inside a world you can explore through your character's eyes. Walk into a scene, open tabletop interaction, and describe what you want to attempt. The Dungeon Master connects that intention to the current situation, your character's capabilities, and the game's rules. First-person exploration, natural conversation, and mechanical resolution share the same campaign. The combination is central to Kingdoms and Dust: an AI DM working within a world of individually simulated people, places, and continuing history.

Speak in your own words#

Address the Dungeon Master or a conversational NPC in ordinary language. Direct replies are authored live and voiced. Ask about a place, challenge an explanation, negotiate, or describe what you want to attempt. The conversation responds to the scene and the person you are addressing.

Bring an intention to the scene#

Tabletop play begins with what your character is trying to do. Describe an approach, ask about your surroundings, or explain how you want to use an available skill or spell. The DM interprets the request in context and connects supported intentions to real actions. This gives the design room for imaginative problem solving and a wider range of approaches as its action support grows. The current situation still matters: your capabilities, resources, target, and what the game can actually resolve determine what is possible.

A voice grounded in a person#

An NPC brings personality, loyalties, knowledge, and memories into the conversation. A returning person can remember your name, a past grievance, or an attempt to make amends. Rulers can speak in the context of their own decisions and ambitions. What a character knows matters: a local witness and a distant monarch have different perspectives on the same event.

The Dungeon Master and the world#

The DM connects the immediate scene to the wider campaign and explains supported ways to act. The people you meet have identities, memories, loyalties, and a place in a history that keeps unfolding. A conversation in a court and a border on the political map belong to that same world. The design aims to make the DM a guide through this connected history, able to give meaning to its events and help your choices become part of it. The autonomous simulation continues to have priorities of its own while you pursue a personal adventure.

Intent becomes consequence#

Supported actions resolve against real game rules and state. A skill check uses the relevant ability and difficulty; a spell has costs, targets, and effects; an outcome can affect health, standing, ownership, or relationships. Live narration follows the result. Success depends on the situation, available capabilities, and the action being possible.

Hear the outcome as it happens#

Once you have addressed the DM or an NPC, direct replies are composed live and given a voice. When a supported action executes, its outcome comes first and the DM narrates that result. The narration follows the campaign's actual resolution, so a described success has to agree with what happened. Dialogue and known deeds can also enter the memories that shape later encounters. The aim is continuity across what you say, what you do, what changes, and what the people around you remember.

Targeting and interaction#

The current T interaction focuses tabletop attention on a target, including a creature or corpse. Non-speaking targets remain under the DM. E on a dead procedural creature opens its loot container. Direct NPC conversation begins with a person who can speak. Interaction conventions continue to evolve during development.

Development scope#

Live replies, voice handling, persistent identity and player memory, social checks with relationship changes, and a subset of mechanical actions have development evidence. The Dialogue and creative problem solving guide explains real passing and failing checks. Broader social consequences, general object manipulation, microphone input, and full release validation remain ongoing work. The range of supported actions continues to grow.