An AI Notebook for Tabletop RPGs (Feature Rich, Simple to Use)

Published August 13, 2026. Last updated August 13, 2026. By Greg Wood.

Ask a table what happened four sessions ago and you’ll get different answers. Someone will remember that the guy in the tower had a name. You may spend the next five minutes scrolling through your message history or chicken-scratch notes.

Artificial intelligence is a touchy subject in this hobby, and it should be. The arguments people are actually having are about generated art and how the models making it were trained, adventures and NPCs written by nobody, or a chatbot sitting in the GM’s chair. Those concerns include the ways AI tools can stifle creativity. They deserve careful attention, although this article has a narrower focus.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored article. I co-founded Archivist, the AI notetaker discussed here. The observations and product claims below are my own and do not necessarily reflect Tangible Day’s broader position on AI use.

Among the practical uses of AI in tabletop RPGs, this article focuses on automating the clerical work around a game. The result is more time to play.

AI Handles the Campaign Bookkeeping

Your group shows up on game night to tell stories with friends. Maintaining the campaign record adds a layer of administrative work around that experience: the recap, the timeline, which faction hates you now, what the item did, who’s owed a favor, and what the party swore to do in session four and hasn’t.

In an internal review of more than 25,000 sessions processed by Archivist, we found that an average session contained roughly 100 details worth retaining, including character actions, decisions, NPC names, and changes in relationships or obligations. This is company data, and results vary with session length and play style.

The campaign record is valuable, although maintaining it can become repetitive and time-consuming. Unless you’re lucky enough to have a dedicated notetaker, it either doesn’t happen or ends when the notetaker burns out. I was that person for our party. Eventually, I realized I was focusing so much on the notes that I wasn’t engaging enough with the story.

What Automated Notes Can Handle

A person can turn four hours of audio from a portable recorder such as the Zoom H1essential, or a transcript, into a summary, track quests, maintain a running list of people and places, and build a compendium, although doing so takes considerable time.

This kind of repetitive organization is one practical use for AI. Its role is to capture a faithful record of what your group already did. In one example, it might record that you paid the harbormaster’s fee and received a plot hook concerning a disturbance at sea. Its role ends with recording the harbormaster and the events that occurred during play.

Archivist users have reported saving anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours per session, depending on how much administrative work they previously handled manually. For some professional GMs using Archivist who run 10 or more games a week, an estimated 45 minutes saved per session can add up to roughly a full workday. These figures come from user reports and company experience rather than an independent time study.

When a detailed record is reliably there, groups start using it and doing things they never did before. Players look things up between sessions. The answer to “What do we actually know about this faction?” is seconds away instead of the question going unasked and being forgotten altogether. More commonly, a GM opens the list of unresolved threads before prep instead of reconstructing it from memory.

Automating transcription and organization gives the group more time for character play, worldbuilding, and staying connected to the campaign between sessions.

Treat the Output as a Draft

Tabletop audio is notoriously difficult to transcribe accurately. Your PC’s hard-to-pronounce fantasy name can be transcribed multiple ways, and excited cross-table talk adds another challenge. For in-person sessions, a 360-degree conference microphone such as the Anker PowerConf S3 can improve pickup around the table.

For computer-based play, an omnidirectional USB microphone such as the Blue Yeti provides a simple recording setup. In our experience, the automated output captures more detail than a player can usually record while participating in the session.

Editing habits vary. Most of our users keep the initial output, and some review every entity description to create a record in their own style. We advise treating the output as a useful draft that each group can edit according to its needs. The amount of review usually comes down to personal preference.

Groups with a dedicated notetaker can use the raw record as a starting point. We’ve found that many “forever notetakers” enjoy working from that material. They can devote less attention to capturing every detail during play and engage more fully with the story.

Recording and Privacy

Tell everyone at the table before recording a session and get their agreement. Archivist states that session audio is deleted after transcription, campaign data can be downloaded or deleted, and user content is not sold or used to train AI models. Review Archivist’s FAQ and privacy policy for current details before using the service.

The Proper Role of the Software

The software captures, organizes, and retrieves material created by the group. Players make the decisions about their characters and campaign canon.

Groups can also use AI for optional brainstorming, such as developing hooks or exploring backstory directions. The group decides which suggestions become part of the campaign.

Clear limits keep the tool focused on capture, organization, and retrieval. The people who showed up retain authorship and gain more time for the campaign itself.

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