AI Program Wants to Teach You How to Play Call of Cthulhu

A tech company has taught an artificial intelligence program how to play Call of Cthulhu, which sounds like the beginning of a modern-day cosmic horror story. Quest Portal has announced Elder, a new AI program designed to help Quest Portal players learn how to play Call of Cthulhu, a popular Lovecraft-themed tabletop RPG. Elder is designed to be an AI assistant that can help Call of Cthulhu with rules questions and help Keepers (the Call of Cthulhu equivalent to a Dungeon Master) brainstorm scenarios for use in Call of Cthulhu sessions and chat about different spells and monsters within the game. 

AI is all the rage in tech right now, and some have wondered whether an AI program would eventually replace human DMs, keepers, and other game runners. A FAQ notes that Elder specifically isn’t designed for this purpose – it’s a chatbot aid that isn’t supposed to “replace or diminish human interaction and creativity in tabletop role-playing games.” The goal of Elder is to make accessing the rules of Call of Cthulhu easier, thus allowing players to focus on actual roleplaying and gameplay. Of course, teaching an AI program the forbidden tomes of eldritch lore might not be a good idea for other reasons, so be careful if you notice your laptop suddenly appear in the middle of a circle of candles as otherworldly chanting echoes from another dimension. 

The new program is available to subscribers to Quest Portal’s Chaosium Core program, which comes with access to various Call of Cthulhu rulebooks. Quest Portal also plans to add access to other Chaosium games, such as Pendragon, RuneQuest, and 7th Sea, to the Chaosium Core system in the future. You can test out Elder with a free seven-day subscription to Quest Portal, which is available on their webpage.