Can an AI run the story without taking over the rules?
Enable narrative improvisation without letting the model alter rules, movement, or authoritative campaign state.
CASE FILE. 05 / RPG / GENERATIVE GAME
AI_VTT
A solo or two-player virtual tabletop with a persistent lobby, exploration, and combat. The AI game master works through text or voice without controlling the rules.
- TypeScript
- PostgreSQL
- Voice AI
- Rules engine
BRIEF. 01 / PROBLEM AND BOUNDARY
The product in one read.
A deliberate view of the current state. Metrics and the hypothesis remain editorial until public evidence can replace them.
- TABLE
- SOLO + DUO EDITORIAL LABEL
- CAMPAIGN
- ASHGLASS SIGNAL EDITORIAL LABEL
- CAPABILITIES
- 5 frontend / backend / data / realtime / ai
- PUBLIC DOOR
- NO PRIVATE SURFACE
SYSTEM TRACE. 02 / PRIMARY FLOW
Boundaries before frameworks.
Shared tabletop → rules and state engine → narrative context → AI game master by text or voice.
- 01TABLE→
Shared tabletop
Map, turn, dice, and presence
- 02RULES→
Authoritative engine
Actions, movement, and combat
- 03MEMORY→
Campaign state
PostgreSQL / cursor and snapshot
- 04GM.AI
Narrative layer
Context, text, voice, and fallback
intent → policy → authoritative state → observable effectEXECUTION TRACE / ILLUSTRATIVE
One path. Every decision in view.
An editorial sequence for discussing contract, authority, and effect. It does not represent real production telemetry.
- TABLE
Captures intent, actor, target, and observed version.
action.proposed - RULES
Validates turn, range, roll, and deterministic consequence.
action.resolved | rejected - MEMORY
Persists the event and derives the new campaign snapshot.
campaign.advanced - GM.AI
Narrates the confirmed outcome through text or voice.
narration.emitted
DECISION LOG. 03 / TRADE-OFFS
Every choice costs something.
Separate probabilistic narration from deterministic resolution; AI proposes fiction and the system validates actions.
- 01 / AUTHORITY
Rules outside the model
- GAIN
- Fiction can improvise without changing dice, health, or inventory.
- COST
- Narrative must translate engine rejections naturally.
- 02 / CONTEXT
Campaign cursor + snapshot
- GAIN
- Recovery does not require resending the entire session history.
- COST
- Summary and state must evolve without contradicting past events.
- 03 / INTERACTION
Voice with text fallback
- GAIN
- The table remains operable when synthesis, network, or model is slow.
- COST
- Multimodal turns require careful cancellation and coordination.
RELIABILITY. 04 / FAIL WITH CONTEXT
Failure mode. Signal back.
These are not published production metrics. They are risks the design must make observable and candidate signals for the next round.
- 01
The game master narrates a consequence the rules engine did not authorize.
- 02
Players reconnect with different versions of the shared campaign.
- 03
Voice latency or interruption leaves a turn without a clear owner.
- 01
Narrative proposals rejected or corrected by the rules engine.
- 02
Consistency between the recovered snapshot and last confirmed event.
- 03
Per-turn latency and frequency of voice-to-text fallback.
INCIDENT DRILL. 05 / CONTAINMENT → RECOVERY → PROOF
When the hypothesis breaks.
Editorial resilience exercises, not real incidents or production runbooks. Each drill turns a failure mode into a response that can be discussed and tested.
DRILL-01The game master narrates a consequence the rules engine did not authorize.SIMULATION / NATIVE
Response to: The game master narrates a consequence the rules engine did not authorize.
- CONTAIN
- Interrupt divergent narration and preserve the deterministic event as the only state authority.
- RECOVER
- Generate a correction or text fallback from the confirmed result without changing health or inventory.
- PROVE
- Validate that narration, event, and snapshot point to the same version and rule consequence.
DRILL-02Players reconnect with different versions of the shared campaign.SIMULATION / NATIVE
Response to: Players reconnect with different versions of the shared campaign.
- CONTAIN
- Reject new proposals until each participant acknowledges the current campaign cursor.
- RECOVER
- Send the snapshot plus later events and rebuild table, turn, and presence before reopening actions.
- PROVE
- Compare the recovered state version and hash across server and every connected player.
DRILL-03Voice latency or interruption leaves a turn without a clear owner.SIMULATION / NATIVE
Response to: Voice latency or interruption leaves a turn without a clear owner.
- CONTAIN
- Cancel pending synthesis, freeze automatic turn passage, and display the confirmed result as text.
- RECOVER
- Return control to the current player and begin new narration only with a current turn token.
- PROVE
- Confirm a single turn transition, no late audio, and continuity through the text fallback.
DESIGN EXERCISE / REVIEW AGAINST REAL TELEMETRY AND RUNBOOKS BEFORE OPERATING
EVIDENCE. 06 / WHAT CAN BE DEFENDED
Facts in view. Gaps too.
Test long-running campaign recovery, voice latency, and narrative consistency in two-player sessions.
- TypeScript + PostgreSQL
- Game master by text or voice
- Solo and two-player campaigns
- Authoritative rules outside the AI
INTERVIEW MODE. 07 / DEEPEN THE CONVERSATION
Three points to open on the board.
Questions that connect the case to system design, product, and operations without turning a contextual decision into a universal rule.
- 01
How to compose campaign context without turning history into authority.
↗ - 02
How to synchronize two players and an agent that also produces events.
↗ - 03
How to evaluate narrative quality separately from rule correctness.
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CASE FILE / 05