I lasted a whole 2 months…

I'm sure you can relate. You start using the big, well-known AI platforms and think why not start using them for custom-made RPG adventures? I don't know about you, but I really enjoyed the creativity and, let's be honest, the convenience of playing solo adventures with ChatGPT or Claude as the game master. Any time I wanted, anywhere I wanted.

Here I am playing my level 3 rogue, helping Father Edriel uncover the temple corruption and who's behind it. I hire some companions like Tarn the warrior and Sister Maris the cleric. We investigate the Shard cult and its quest to gather artifacts and help their leader achieve immortality. Story-wise, top notch.

But the cracks show up and get worse and worse. The AI Game Master starts forgetting characters, geography starts getting blurry as a town is sometimes north-west and other times south. The narrator forgets I looted 2 gems a few scenes ago clearing a bandit camp. It doesn't even remember my level eventually. If you've tried before, this should resonate. The main platforms are great at narration but have less long-term memory than my favorite game of all time, Final Fantasy VI on the SNES. And that came out over 30 years ago.

So I started building the game I wanted to play and here we are, PermaCampaign is born. Here's a quirky fact: I debated even making the game public but I wanted to play on my phone, in my bed. So I figured if it's hosted online, it may as well be accessible to other passionate players.

I can't promise you all the bells and whistles of a Google-funded game. But I can promise you an honest game where the narrator doesn't fudge the dice to get you a win every time. Where the system remembers your significant actions hundreds, thousands of turns later. And where the world genuinely lives around you with each NPC, faction and antagonist having their own motivations that aren't invented on the fly (then forgotten) by the narrator.