Your First AIRPG

Step 1: Creating the Game World

Unlike CRPGs, where a game studio or developer has already created the game world, in AIRPG, the first step is to create the game world. While this process may sounds cumbersome or intimidating, it can be as light or as detailed as you want it to be and our AI GM will help guide you through the process.

First, we want to introduce the term Setting, in a literary or gaming context, this refers to the time and place of our story. Are we in ancient land or the distant future? Is magic real? Are there aliens? Dragons? Lost Civilizations? During this stage of the AIRPG, the world is our canvas, as we choose the world where our will unfold.

For your first game, we recommend drawing on some common settings, with well established expectations. For example, you can say something like:

There is no right or wrong answer here, and the AI GM will help guide you through the process.

During this process, the AI GM will also ask you about what game system you want to draw on for rules. There are several systems with publicly available rules that you can checkout, we recommend choosing DnD 5e for your first game as the rules are generally beginner friendly and the Systems Reference Document (SRD) - and abridged version of the rules - is available for free from Wizards of the Coast here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/resources/1781-systems-reference-document-srd .

Once the AI feels that the setting has been sufficiently established, the AI GM will ask you to confirm that you are ready to move on to the next step - Character Creation - where you will begin describing your character.

While setting up the game world, you will see under the 'Game Setting' section, some of the AI GM's notes about the world that is being developed, if you are looking for more mystery, you may want to avoid reading these notes, as they may contain spoilers.

Finally, as the world begins to be more developed, the AI will send you a curated soundtrack of some classical music. You can play or pause the music by clicking the play/pause button that will appear over the chat box.

NOTE: We don't recommend games with active time travel or flashbacks at this time, we are still working on some additional logic to support them.

Step 2: Creating Your Character

Once again, the options are nearly limitless, you can play any kind of character you want, but we strongly recommend choosing one that fits the setting you have chosen. For example, if you are playing in Ancient Rome, you probably don't want to play an astronaut for your first game. While the AI GM, can support the request, it will likely lead to a more complex gameplay experience, which may not be the best choice for your first game.

Just as with the setting, you can tell the AI GM what you want to play and it will populate the details for you. On the right side of the screen, you will see your character's details being populated. You can suggest things like your character's demographics, background, inventory, abilities, etc. In some cases, you may need to make die rolls to determine some of the details for your character, this is often determined/in line with the rule system you chosen when setting up the game world.

To continue you with our early example, if we are playing a game set in Ancient Rome, we could say something like:

As you can imagine, each of these characters is likely to be complementary to a different kind of story, even though they could all fit nicely into our broader setting of Ancient Rome. The Gladiator is likely to be a more action focused story, while the Senator would likely lead to gameplay more focused on political intrigue, the traveling merchant would likely lead to gameplay more focused on diplomacy and trade. We could also imagine other characters like a thief, a priest, a soldier, etc.

The AI allows for immense freedom and flexibility both with our world and our characters, as you can see our game development works to increase and enable your available choices as opposed to pre-defining or limiting them.

Finally, once the AI GM feels that your character has been sufficiently detailed, it will ask you to confirm whether or not you are ready to move on to the game narrative, where your character will be placed into the world and the story will begin.

Step 3: Playing the Game

This last step is also the longest since it can last for effectively as long as you want to continue playing the game. At this point, you will be able to interact with the game world as your character, visiting different locations, interacting with different characters and people that you meet along the way, and otherwise exploring the world and the story.

Our AI GM will also continue taking actions in the background to help ensure that the world remains alive and dynamic. As you meet new people (Non-Player Characters or NPCs), the AI will create their backstories, inventory, etc. similarly for new locations and items that are encountered. These developments will be recorded in the game encyclopedia on the right side of the screen. However, not all these entries will be visible to you, for example, unvisited locations, items outside of your inventory, and NPCs that have not yet chosen to share their information with you will not be visible to you. Moreover, you cannot ask an NPC to reveal their `stats` to you as that is not something that would be a normal statement in most settings, rather these changes will be handled automatically in the background by the AI GM, you simply need to interact with the world organically/naturally as your character would in those situations.

We hope this guide helps you get started with your first AIRPG, and that you have a great time playing!