An AI Dungeon Alternative With Real Dice, Memory and Friends

Most people who search for an AI Dungeon alternative are not tired of AI storytelling. They want the story to become a game: a roll that cannot be argued with, a world that still knows about your debt three sessions later, friends at the same table, and narration in their own language. This page explains what to look for and how Thavernia, a tabletop role-playing game with an AI as the Game Master, is built around each point. Thavernia writes this page, so we also say plainly what it does not do.

The short answer#

A good alternative to an AI text adventure app does five things the model cannot do by itself:

• The dice are rolled outside the model, so the AI narrates the result instead of choosing it.
• The world is stored, not remembered. Hit points, inventory, gold, quests and people live in a database the model cannot overwrite.
• Friends can sit at the same table, see the same rolls and talk to each other.
• It plays in your language, with narration written in it rather than translated.
• Your character grows and carries level, gold and items into the next adventure.

Thavernia was built for exactly that list. You can try it with no account and no card: the free trial gives you three turns, and a free account adds 20 more.

Why people look for an AI Dungeon alternative#

AI story apps are open-ended text generators. You write what you do or say, the model continues the story, and usually you can retry or edit its answer until you like it. That design gives a lot of freedom. It is also where the common complaints come from:

• Nothing is at stake. Without dice or rules, the model decides whether your sword lands, and if you dislike the result you retry. A game you cannot lose stops feeling like a game after a while.
• The world forgets. Everything the model knows about your story is text competing for limited context space. Memory notes and keyword cards help, but in a long story the details still slip: how many potions you had, who owes you money, what happened in that town.
• No character sheet. Hit points, inventory, gold and level live inside the prose rather than in numbers anything enforces.
• Language. Many of these apps are built in English. The model may answer in your language, but menus, help and item names stay English, and long narration tends to drift back to it.
• A story more than a campaign. There is no referee, no quest log and no progression that carries from one adventure to the next.

None of this is a flaw in storytelling as such. It is the gap between a story generator and a game, and the rest of this page is about closing it.

What a good alternative needs#

Before you try anything, it helps to know what to test. This is the checklist we would use for any AI role-playing game, ours included:

• Dice outside the model. Who rolls the number, and can the AI change it afterwards? If the model rolls its own dice, it can also talk itself out of a bad result.
• Persistent world state. Where are hit points, gold and quests kept? A paragraph of prose is not storage.
• Memory across sessions. Come back after a week. Does the world still know what you did?
• Friends at the table. Can several people play one story live, see the same rolls and talk to each other?
• Your language. Is the narration written in your language or translated, and does it stay there for a whole campaign?
• Fairness. Is the difficulty set before you roll? Can you lose? Does anything stop the narrator from bending the numbers to fit a dramatic scene?
• Progression. Does your character level up, and does anything carry into the next adventure?

The next sections take these one at a time and show how Thavernia handles each.

Dice outside the model#

In Thavernia the server rolls the number, not the language model. The difficulty is stated before you throw, the roll is shown to the whole table, and the result cannot be revised afterwards. The model then describes what happened; it does not decide it. A bad roll stays bad.

Rolls follow what your character is actually doing and carrying: the weapon you have equipped, your abilities, and any advantage or disadvantage the situation gives you. When an action depends on an earlier step, that step is rolled first, and if it fails the next roll never happens. How checks and difficulty work is explained in D&D dice and checks explained.

A world that keeps score#

Hit points, inventory, gold, the current step of each quest, the people you have met and the places you have been are rows in a database, not sentences in a chat. The model reads them every turn, but it cannot write over them on its own. Every NPC has its own hit points, so an enemy that has taken three hits is still wounded on the next turn.

After each turn a background pass checks the narration for world changes the model forgot to record, such as an item handed over or a quest step completed, and adds them. Why this matters more than any memory trick is covered in the persistent world.

Memory over weeks and months#

Because the world lives in a database, memory does not depend on the model's context window. You do not maintain memory notes or keyword cards. Come back after three months and the man you owe money to is still in that town, the potion you drank is still gone, and the quest is waiting at the step where you left it.

Each campaign also keeps a record of what happened, which you can share as a read-only adventure log, and a single great moment can be shared as a link of its own.

A table for friends#

Thavernia is built as a shared table, not as a single-player story with guests:

• Up to six seats. Human players and AI companions count together, and up to two seats can be AI companions.
• Three ways in. Invite someone from your friends list, share an invite code whose requests the host approves, or post the table on the community page.
• Live for everyone. Every turn streams to the whole table as it is written, and every player sees each roll.
• Voice built in. Group voice chat in the room, plus a separate out-of-character text chat.
• Spectators. The host can open the table to watchers through a link. Watching is free for members, though it needs an account.

Your own language#

Thavernia generates narration directly in English, Turkish, German, Italian, French or Spanish. It is not written in English first and then translated. The campaign language is chosen when the campaign is created and is independent of the interface language, so you can read the menus in one language and play in another.

If English is not your first language, this is often the biggest difference you will notice: the Game Master writes in your language from the first line to the last, quest log included. The narration can also be read aloud by a narrator voice matched to the campaign's language; that is a paid feature, and free accounts get a short taste of it. More in playing a tabletop RPG in your own language.

Fair, even when it hurts#

A Game Master that agrees to everything is not fair, only obliging. In Thavernia the difficulty is fixed before the roll, so it cannot be raised after a good throw or lowered after a bad one. Fights can go wrong, friendly fire is real, and your character can die.

The server also checks the story against the numbers. If the model narrates a boss falling to a blow its remaining hit points do not allow, the turn is rejected and rewritten with the real numbers. The narration only uses gear your character has actually equipped, so a sword you sold last week does not turn up in a fight. The evidence is laid out in is the AI game master fair.

Progression that carries over#

Experience comes only from what you actually do, not from time spent. Ability improvements arrive every four levels, as in D&D, so growth feels earned. Level, gold and items belong to your account and go with you into the next campaign.

Between adventures there is a town with a tavern job board, crafting workshops and AI companions you can send on expeditions. Adventures also have a real ending, so a campaign can finish properly instead of trailing off.

What Thavernia does not do#

A rules-based table makes different choices from a story generator. Know these before you start:

• Unlimited genres. It is a fantasy table with rules. You cannot jump to a space station mid-sentence.
• Retry until you like it. A failed roll stands. That is the design, but it is a real change if you are used to regenerating answers.
• A huge library of user scenarios. You start from your own idea, a ready-made hero and premise, or an adventure from the town board.
• Free play every day. The free turns are one-time: three without an account and 20 more with a free account.

What it costs#

You can try it without an account or card: the free trial gives you three turns, and a free account adds 20 more, played solo. After that a subscription keeps the table open: the Adventurer plan is 14.99 US dollars a month (14.99 euros in Europe), Hero is 37.99 and Legend is 89.99. Paying for 3, 6 or 12 months at once takes 5, 10 or 20 percent off. Higher plans add more campaigns, more character art and more AI companions.

Switching from AI Dungeon: bringing your story over#

You cannot import a save from another app, and you do not need to. What makes a story yours is the character and the idea, and both come over in a few minutes:

• Bring the character, not the transcript. When you create a character, put what matters into the fields: personality, goal, flaw, backstory and appearance. The Game Master works from the first four every turn (the opening of a long backstory), and the portrait is drawn from the appearance. If you are starting fresh, see how to make a D&D character.
• Bring the premise in a few sentences. A new campaign starts from an adventure idea of up to 500 characters, plus the themes you pick. Sum up where your old story stood: the place, the threat, the open question. Leave the rest for play.
• Write intentions, not outcomes. In a story app you can write "I cut the guard down" and it happens. Here you write "I try to cut the guard down", and the dice decide.
• Let a failed roll be part of the story. Failing forward, taking a wound, fleeing a fight you cannot win: that is where the memorable scenes come from.
• Stop curating memory. Inventory, quests and the people you met are kept by the game, so the effort you used to spend on memory notes can go into playing.

The fastest test is three turns: take the free trial, try something risky, and watch the dice land. How the Game Master side works step by step is on the AI game master page, and if you mostly play alone, solo tabletop RPG is the next read.

Frequently asked#