In a gaming landscape increasingly grappling with the role of artificial intelligence, the upcoming narrative RPG platform Master of Lore is proposing a different path. While many applications of AI in gaming focus on generating content, Master of Lore’s SAGE engine is built on the core principle of memory.
The team’s pitch is that the system is designed to remember not just dialogue choices but also a player’s hesitations and omissions, allowing the world and its inhabitants to evolve and react with a level of nuance reminiscent of a human Game Master. This focus on responsive storytelling aims to create a solo roleplaying experience that feels dynamic and personal, a direct contrast to the backlash seen against undisclosed or poorly implemented generative AI in other titles.
To explore the technology and the philosophy behind this new platform, Geek Native spoke with Tomasz Guściora, Project Lead Developer and one of the architects of the SAGE engine. We discussed how the system’s “resistance” creates a more authentic TTRPG feel, the ethics of AI in a creative space, and how tabletop gamers’ feedback was crucial in shaping an AI that remembers like a storyteller, not a chatbot. Guściora also offered insights into the future of Master of Lore, including the development of new genres and the ambitious plans for a multiplayer mode that could one day see the AI running a game for a whole table of friends.
Interview with Tomasz Guściora
To start, for our readers who might just be hearing about Master of Lore for the first time, how would you describe it? Is it a video game, a solo-RPG tool, a virtual Game Master, or something else entirely?
Master of Lore is a new kind of narrative RPG platform. It blends the freedom of tabletop role-playing with the accessibility of a video game. At its heart is an intelligent and reactive Game Master we call the Loremaster, powered by the SAGE engine. You can play solo, anytime, anywhere, without needing to prepare anything or gather a group around a table. So it’s not just a solo-RPG tool or a virtual assistant: it’s a full-fledged role-playing experience, driven by your decisions, your character, and your imagination.
The core innovation you’re highlighting is memory and the SAGE engine. Could you give us a practical example of how the system remembering a player’s “hesitations, omissions, and silent decisions” might play out in an actual game session?
Absolutely. Let’s say a player is cornered by a suspicious NPC who demands to know where their allegiance lies : are they secretly working with the local Resistance, or siding with the oppressive Weavers who occupy the city of Kesi? If the player tries to stay vague or dodge the question, the NPC won’t just shrug it off. They might see that hesitation as a sign of guilt, press harder, or even alert the authorities. The system doesn’t just track what you say, it tracks what you don’t say. That silence becomes part of the story and shapes how the world reacts to you. It’s incredibly immersive.
The press release mentions that the Loremaster AI “resists” rather than just indulging every user prompt. That sounds very much like a human GM trying to maintain the integrity of a story. What does that “resistance” look like in practice?
It’s exactly that. When a player suggests something that’s clearly outside the game’s rules or logic (say, trying to perform five actions in the space of one heartbeat), the Loremaster will respond directly: “Whoa there, adventurer. You can’t do all of that at once. Choose your move wisely! Time is short.” If the request is more playful or absurd, the Loremaster might joke along before steering the player back on track: “That might fly at McDonald’s, but here in Kesi… things are a bit more serious.”
And if a player stays in character but starts drifting off-course, the Loremaster will respond like a human GM would, using NPC dialogue to nudge them back into the main thread of the story. It’s this blend of direct rule enforcement and subtle narrative guidance that makes the experience feel so human… and honestly, a bit magical.
You’ve clearly put a lot of thought into the ethics of using AI, particularly with your article on “Embracing Ethical AI.” What would you say to a tabletop gamer who is fundamentally skeptical, or even worried, that AI like the Loremaster will eventually replace human connection and creativity at the gaming table?
First, thank you for noticing, that’s something we care deeply about. AI will never replace the chemistry of a group of friends sitting around a table, laughing, arguing, sharing a story together. What we can do is offer a way to explore great narratives when that kind of gathering isn’t possible.
If you’ve ever played a Fighting Fantasy book or a “Choose Your Own Adventure,” you know the joy of solo storytelling. Now imagine that… but open-ended, reactive, and deeply immersive, like a full RPG session.
And importantly, the worlds, rules, and stories in Master of Lore are all built by human writers, artists, and designers. The AI is just the storyteller, it doesn’t replace creativity. It amplifies it.
Your approach to art is to have the AI generate visuals based on a palette and style guide created by your principal human artists. Could you walk us through that collaboration? How does an artist’s role change when they’re creating for an AI system rather than for a static rulebook?
Our artists were involved from the very beginning and many were initially skeptical, as they should be. But once they saw that they remained the creative force behind the world, their mindset shifted. They became curious. They asked questions.
For environments, the process was relatively straightforward: they created key images, and we trained the AI to generate variations that remained faithful to their original style.
For creatures, it was more complex. Our concept artists invented entirely new species, like the bombyx (which look nothing like standard fantasy monsters) and provided close-ups of specific features like eyes, hands, limbs. This gave the AI a kind of “morphological grammar” it could use to create coherent new creatures.
So the artist’s role doesn’t shrink, it expands. They become world-builders and educators, teaching the AI how to extend their vision.
The project was refined by tabletop RPG players, not just prompt engineers. What was the most important piece of feedback you received from those TTRPG players that fundamentally changed or improved the SAGE engine?
There were many! But perhaps the most transformative feedback came around consistency and memory.
Tabletop gamers are very attentive to whether an NPC remembers what you told them three scenes ago or whether the story follows logical cause-and-effect. Any inconsistency breaks immersion immediately.
So we spent a lot of time improving how Loremaster recalls past interactions, not just mechanically but emotionally: what the NPC felt about you, how their attitude shifted, whether they’re still holding a grudge.
That’s a major difference between SAGE and generic conversational AI: it remembers like a storyteller, not just a chatbot.
What was the initial spark for Master of Lore? Was there a specific moment or a frustrating TTRPG session that made the team think, “There has to be a way to use technology to solve this”?
Originally, we were working on a digital assistant for human Game Masters, something to help track rules, manage NPCs, that sort of thing.
Then AI took a huge leap forward, and we had a moment of clarity: role-playing games are amazing, but hard to schedule and even harder to play solo. What if we could make the GMitself fully autonomous and narrative-aware?
That’s when Master of Lore was born. Without this new wave of AI, a solo role-playing game at this level would be impossible.
The debut universe is Loom – Woven Worlds. What can you tell us about the process of building that world’s “bible” for the AI? And looking ahead, are you planning to branch into other genres like sci-fi, horror, or modern-day thrillers?
Yes! Building Loom started just like any traditional tabletop setting: we wrote a complete world bible(geography, politics, history, factions, creatures). It’s a unique setting, but the approach was classic.
The next step was to transform that material into structured documents and databases the AI could reference in real time. Our team created custom tools, including detailed Excel sheets listing locations, NPCs, stats, narrative effects, and more.
Now we apply that same structure to every new world we build. And yes, we’re already working on sci-fi, horror, and other genres. Loom is just the beginning.
As a developer, what’s been the most surprising or unexpected thing the Loremaster has done during testing? Has it ever generated a plot twist or a character moment that genuinely shocked the development team?
Absolutely. What continues to surprise us is the narrative intuition the Loremaster can develop when properly tuned.
One storyline we found deeply moving involved the Yrch, a non-human species in Loom, who were all suffering from inexplicable, shared nightmares. The player gradually discovered that these visions were caused by an ancient magical curse tied to their collective past, and eventually had the chance to lift it through a ritual. That kind of communal healing, centered on a marginalized group, felt incredibly powerful. And none of it was pre-written: it emerged naturally from the system.
Another twist that caught us off guard was when a well-established nemesis of the player (someone they had clashed with multiple times) suddenly showed up, not as a villain, but as a desperate figure wrongly accused of a crime, pleading for help. It completely shifted the moral dynamics, and offered a real, meaningful choice: will you help someone you once hated, or turn your back on them?
Moments like these are what remind us that this isn’t just interactive fiction – it’s livingstorytelling.
The roadmap mentions multiplayer support, which is very exciting. How do you envision that working? Will one Loremaster run the game for a whole party, and how will it handle conflicting player actions or intra-party drama?
That’s one of our most exciting future features. Eventually, we imagine a group sitting around a table, placing a phone in the middle, and Loremaster just runs the game: voice, images, sound, rules, everything.
But first, multiplayer will expand from the current solo experience. Multiple players will join a shared mission, each with their own account, and collaborate… or compete.
They’ll be able to speak publicly (visible to all), whisper privately to the Loremaster, or even to other players. There will be shared group objectives, but also secret personal goals.
And yes, drama will happen. Loremaster won’t judge. It will just keep the story alive.
Thanks, Tomasz!
