Thank you to everyone who received and filled out our quarterly survey. To be expected, there were a million different feature requests and suggestions. While some do not align with our vision for GM Assistant, especially in the near-term, there were some very common themes.

Thus! In Q2, we will be doubling down on analysis quality and integrations (Developer API, more exports, etc.) as they were overwhelmingly the most requested improvements and biggest points of frustration.

Last month, Smart Edit was launched to all users and has been very well received. This was to directly address the most common pain point: correcting mistakes in the notes after the analysis is complete.

We have been monitoring usage and feedback closely and will continue making improvements. If you have tried it, let us know what is working and what is not.

We've begun to build out the docs section to help show folks how to get the most out of GM Assistant. It is quite basic for now, but we will be adding more guides and tutorials over time.

Printer-Friendly Homebrewery Exports

Homebrewery exports now include a printer-friendly option for cleaner output when printing to paper or PDF.

Smart Edit Improvements

Fixed some issues discovered after launch such as long-running edits timing out and respecting the spoken language of the session. We've also made small modifications while watching what kinds of changes work well and which could use some work.

Minor Enhancements

✅ Screen wake lock on uploads and processing - Your phone will no longer go to sleep while uploading or processing a session, unless you are in low battery mode (Sorry, can't help that!).

✅ Collapsible notes sections - Every section in your notes can now be collapsed.

✅ Sticky session toolbar - The session toolbar stays in place as you scroll, making it easier to use find/replace or smart edit while you review your session.

✅ Analysis speed improvements - Analyses now complete faster on average.

To meet additional GDPR requirements, EU users must now consent to sending voice data before every upload. This adds one checkbox to the upload form. If you suspect we are not detecting your location properly, your country can be manually set in account settings.

As always, we do not retain audio after analysis, do not sell data, and do not train AI on your content.

We have changed how we expose our public roadmap. It no longer includes what we are currently working on. It is now the place where we document potential features and feedback we have received, so you can see what is on our radar.

We've discovered how valuable it is to be quick on our feet and pivot development when needed, so we don't want to give any false promises about what/when is coming next.

Cheers!

-Alex

Founder, GM Assistant]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/introducing-smart-edit https://gmassistant.app/blog/introducing-smart-edit Fix a pronoun, add a missing NPC, or rewrite a recap; across every section at once. Smart Edit is now available for all users.

The Problem

One of the biggest frustrations we've heard from users is when GM Assistant gets some minor detail wrong, but it's pervasive across many fields. Say the analysis uses the wrong pronoun for Tiamat, but Tiamat is mentioned in the recap, the NPC list, the outline, and a couple of memorable moments. Fixing it means editing four or five different sections one by one. It's tedious, and it's exactly the kind of busywork GM Assistant is supposed to save you from.

Or maybe the analysis attributed an action to the wrong character. Or it missed an NPC entirely. Or you just want your recap to sound like a news anchor describing the bewildering actions of your party. All of these are small corrections, but tracking them down across every field is a pain.

Smart Edit

Smart Edit lets you describe what you want changed and applies it across your entire session at once. Instead of pecking through each section, you just tell it what's wrong (or what's missing) and it figures out where the changes need to go.

A few examples of things you can do:

• Fix a name or pronoun everywhere at once -"Change Tiamat's pronouns from he/him to she/her"
• Correct a misattribution -"It was Brother Cal who was busy headbutting the treasure chest, not Gronk"
• Add something the analysis missed -"Add an NPC named Drenna, the halfling innkeeper at the Rusty Nail"
• Generate a new stylized recap -"Add a pirate-style recap"
• Remove something irrelevant -"Remove Jackie from NPCs, she's my real life cat"

Review Before Applying

Feel free to experiment and see what it can do. Smart Edit never changes your notes without your say-so. After you submit an instruction, you get a preview of every proposed change -what field it affects, what the original text was, and what the new text would be. You can toggle off any individual change or edit the suggested text before applying.



If you don't like the results, just cancel -nothing gets saved until you click Apply.

Usage

Every session comes with free Smart Edits:

• Free accounts: 5 per session
• Subscribers: 10 per session

After that, additional edits cost 5 credits each. Each time you click "Generate Changes" counts as one edit, regardless of how many field changes it suggests.

Get Started

Smart Edit is available now for all users. To try it out, open any session with a completed analysis, enter Edit Mode, and click the Smart Edit button.

For a full walkthrough, including tips on writing effective instructions and details on what you can edit, check out the Smart Edit guide.

We will be paying close attention to feedback and will be making improvements based on it. Drop us feedback in the app or email feedback@gmassistant.app.

-Alex

Founder, GM Assistant]]> Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-march-2026-colors-and-quality https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-march-2026-colors-and-quality Campaign accent colors, campaign exports, docs overhaul, and user feedback spotlight.



Happy St. Patrick's Day! We skipped a February dev update, so this post covers about two months of work from late January through mid-March.

New Features

Campaign Colors - Promoted from Alpha!

After sitting with our alpha testers, Campaign Colors is now available to all users! You can now assign an accent color to each of your campaigns. Your chosen color appears as a left border on headers and as sidebar highlights, making it easy to visually distinguish between campaigns subconciously.

Campaign Details Export

You can now export your campaign-level details in addition to individual session exports. Meant for backing up your campaign info or sharing it with other tools.

Improvements

• Sign-In / Sign-Up Separation - Split into separate pages for a cleaner login experience to help prevent accidental account creation when mistyping emails
• Tips & Tricks → Docs - Reorganized into a proper documentation section with a table of contents. We will be greatly expanding this soon.
• More Memorable Moments - Longer sessions now generate more moments
• UI Fixes
  • Fixes for full screen printing/screenshots on mobile and desktop
  • Improved mobile font sizes and note header consistency
  • Better error messages throughout the app

  Did You Know?

  • Public sharing links - You can create a public link to share your session notes with your players or anyone else. No account needed for them to view it!
  • Session title suggestions - After analysis completes, click "edit" on your session title to see suggested titles based on your session's content
  • Campaign details improve spelling - Filling in your campaign details (character names, locations, etc.) is the single best way to ensure proper spelling of proper nouns in your transcripts and analysis. You can also add other details in descriptions such as character pronouns and common mispellings.

  Blog Posts

  • 5 Ways to Spice Up Your Next Session Using Your Notes
  • Using Obsidian for D&D and TTRPG Notes - Part 1

  Your Feedback

  You all have been very generous with your feedback and ideas. I will try to do a better job of surfacing common requests and where we stand on them.

  Here are some recent requests:

  "More memorable moments!"

  Done! As mentioned above, longer sessions now generate more moments. There have been requests for even more, we have some ideas in the works to scratch that itch.

  Player misattributions / speaker mixups

  This is the #1 piece of negative feedback we receive. We're actively working on improvements to reduce misattributions AND to make it easier to correct things when they are wrong. This is a hard problem, but we're on it.

  Upload raw transcripts instead of audio

  Many of you have asked for this for privacy reasons or uploading a backlog of notes. It's not as trivial as it seems to implement while maintaining analysis quality, but we're looking into it.

  Alpha Testing Program

  We need more alpha testers! Alpha testers get early access to experimental features and help shape the direction of GM Assistant. Features often live in alpha for a while before being promoted to general availability, which means alpha testers get access months ahead of everyone else.

  If you're interested in getting early access and helping us build the future of GM Assistant, email me at alpha@gmassistant.app. It will just require an Alpha Tester Agreement to sign to ensure we are on the same page.

  What's Next?

  We're currently working on some major features, but analysis quality and ease of use remain paramount. More to share soon!

  -Alex

  Founder, GM Assistant]]> Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/using-obsidian-for-ttrpg-notes-part-1 https://gmassistant.app/blog/using-obsidian-for-ttrpg-notes-part-1 Discover why Obsidian.md has become such a popular note-taking tool among Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters and TTRPG Game Masters, and learn the core features that align perfectly with campaign management.
  
  

  In this post, we'll talk about whyObsidian.md is such a popular note-taking tool among TTRPG Game Masters. Obsidian isn't a TTRPG-specific application, but several of its core features align extremely well with how tabletop campaigns function over time.

  What campaign management/notes tools do you use?

  Obsidian19%

  Google Docs18%

  Pen and Paper18%

  Other13%

  OneNote9%

  World Anvil9%

  Notion8%

  MS Word3%

  LegendKeeper3%

  Campfire0%

  Back in October, we polled our community about what note-taking tools they use, and Obsidian came out on top with 19% of the vote; beating out dedicated TTRPG tools, other note-taking apps, and even the classic pen and paper approach.

  Since it is so widely adopted by Dungeon Masters and GMs, there exists a plethora of plugins and resources for Obsidian to help with D&D/TTRPG campaign tracking and prep, which we will talk about in part 2!

  Robust Note-Taking Software

  At its core, Obsidian is simply very good note-taking software. That matters more than any single feature when you're using it regularly for campaign management.

  Key qualities Dungeon Masters/Game Masters tend to value:

  • Fast, flexible writing – Notes are quick to create and edit, with simple Markdown formatting for headings, lists, emphasis, and structure.
  • Lightweight formatting – You can add structure without breaking flow, which is important during prep and quick edits between scenes.
  • Powerful search – All notes are plain text indexed, making it easy to find NPCs, locations, or past events across the entire campaign.
  • Easy refactoring – Notes can be reorganized, split, or expanded later as ideas solidify or recur.
  • Low friction – There's very little overhead between deciding to write something down and actually writing it. This is so important so that you actually do it!

  These make Obsidian reliable for real campaign use, not just theoretical organization.

  

  Key Features GMs Like About Obsidian

  Plain Markdown Files Stored Locally

  Every note in Obsidian is just a plain Markdown file stored on your local machine. Markdown is just plain text so you can read it in any application. Here's an example:

  Opened in TextEdit

  

  Rendered in Obsidian

  

  For GMs, this has several practical advantages:

  • Notes are useful outside of Obsidian, allowing you to use the notes in any other application
  • Campaigns are easy to back up, version, or sync
  • Getting notes in and out of Obsidian is easy

  For long-running D&D campaigns, this creates confidence. Dungeon Masters invest months or years into a world, and Markdown ensures that investment remains accessible regardless of tools.

  Offline Access at the Table

  Obsidian works entirely offline.

  That's nifty if you are in an unreliable internet environment like a convention or a D&D retreat out in the mountains. It's also an extra layer of comfort around data privacy.

  Flexible Sharing Options

  Although Obsidian is primarily a personal knowledge base, it supports several ways to share campaign information:

  • Obsidian Publish for player-facing campaign wikis or session recaps
  • Shared folders via cloud sync (e.g. Dropbox, iCloud, Git)
  • Exported Markdown or PDFs for handouts

  Many Game Masters maintain a private "vault" (Obsidian's word for a collection of notes) for prep and secrets, alongside a curated player-facing vault or published site. This separation allows Obsidian to function as both a GM's brain and a group reference without exposing hidden information.

  Example of a GMA user's German campaign session published with Obsidian Publish

  

  Managing Campaigns in Obsidian

  Example hybrid folder structure

  

  Session-Centered Campaigns

  In session-centered setups:

  • Each session gets its own note
  • NPCs and locations are created only as they appear
  • Worldbuilding grows reactively

  Sessions act as the timeline backbone of the campaign. This approach pairs well with improvisational or low-prep GMing styles.

  Wiki-Style Worldbuilding

  Some GMs treat Obsidian as a personal campaign wiki:

  • Dedicated notes for NPCs, locations, factions, and lore
  • Heavy use of links and indexes
  • Hub notes for navigation

  This style excels at continuity and deep worlds, but requires more upkeep between sessions.

  Hybrid Approaches

  Most campaigns end up hybrid over time.

  Sessions remain the primary timeline, while recurring NPCs, locations, and factions gradually accumulate detail. Obsidian supports this incremental growth particularly well.

  This is the style discussed on https://obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/Obsidian+TTRPG+Tutorials/Getting+Started/Vault+Structure

  Common Pitfalls When Starting with Obsidian

  Over-Engineering the Vault Before the First Session

  Designing a perfect vault structure upfront is a common mistake. Campaigns change, and rigid systems often break under real play. Simple structures that evolve organically tend to last longer.

  ---

  Importing Large Rulesets Too Early

  Importing entire SRDs or rulebooks can clutter a vault quickly. Static rules content provide less value than notes about what actually happened at the table.

  ---

  Writing Long, Unlinked Session Summaries

  Blocks of text are difficult to reuse or scan for quick information. Session notes become far more valuable when they link to NPCs, locations, and unresolved hooks.

  ---

  Renaming Files Outside Obsidian

  If a note is renamed outside of Obsidian (for example, in Finder or File Explorer), Obsidian cannot update existing links automatically. This can leave links pointing to the old filename. Moving things around within Obsidian will keep all the links intact.

  ---

  Installing Too Many Plugins Before Establishing a Workflow

  Plugins amplify existing habits. Without a clear capture and organization process, they often add complexity instead of clarity. Bloating the tool is going to make things feel more overwhelming and complicated, which will feel like punishment when you are just trying to manage notes.

  Links or Folders

  Folder structures vary widely between Obsidian vaults. Linking habits do not.

  Folders help with visual organization, but links preserve meaning and relationships. Consistent linking allows backlinks to surface connections naturally over time.

  A useful rule of thumb:

  If something might matter again, give it a note and link to it.

  Graph view gives you an interactive view of the relationship between notes

  

  You can see everywhere a note is referenced with backlinks

  

  ---

  GM Assistant → Obsidian

  Obsidian is best understood as a campaign archive and knowledge system. It organizes, connects, and resurfaces information after a session is over.

  GM Assistant is built to handle the opposite problem: supporting high-quality note capture during play for Dungeons & Dragons and other TTRPGs.

  Rather than replacing world-building or campaign management tools, GM Assistant is designed to feed them. Session notes, NPCs, and locations captured during D&D sessions can be exported into Obsidian, where they become part of a durable, navigable campaign record.

  In part 2 we will talk about more resources to use with Obsidian.md, but if you can't wait or already use Obsidian, check out https://obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Articles https://gmassistant.app/blog/5-ways-to-spice-up-your-next-session https://gmassistant.app/blog/5-ways-to-spice-up-your-next-session Want to add some spice to your next session, but running low on time? Here are 5 ways to use your GM Assistant notes to quickly come up with fun scenarios.
  
  

  Want to add some spice to your next session, but running low on time? There are many ways to use the detailed notes that GM Assistant provides to quickly come up with fun scenarios for your players to enjoy. Here are 5 of my favorite ways to switch things up when preparing for your next session, in under 20 minutes.

  1) The Missing NPC

  

  Check out the NPC lists from your GM Assistant notes a couple sessions back, and find an NPC the party hasn't seen in a while. Try to take that character, and plant them in the next session.

  And if you have some more time, flesh out their story and come up with a plausible reason for them to be there, while still factoring in the player's actions and overarching plot.

  Making background characters your players interact with come back every now and then can add more depth to the world and make players feel the weight of their actions. Additionally, it may also incentivize players to remember your characters and check in on them more often.

  Example: A librarian the party helped is planning to propose and is now traveling to find the perfect ore to craft a ring.

  2) The Unforeseen Consequence

  

  Looking over your notes from the last session? Pick out a minor event that was brushed over, something your players did that didn't really lead to anything. It could be interesting to find some sort of consequence that the players might face because of what they did. Try to find an unexpected angle, you don't want to be too predictable, but keep the reaction proportional to the action.

  Now, not everything needs to be impactful. There is a careful balance to be had, between too many consequences that feel overwhelming and predictable, and too few where the world feels static and railroaded. But if you consistently sprinkle it in, players will start to think about their choices more, because even the small ones matter.

  Example: The goblins the party beat up a few towns ago have regrouped and are planning an ambush.

  3) The Dusty Item

  

  It's always fun to give players new items and spells to play around with. But the more they have, the more some of the niche items might get overlooked. One of the really nice things about GM Assistant is that you can easily look over the lists the items you've given out, and try to find some items that have been collecting some dust. It could be a fun exercise to design a situation that can be solved using that item in a clever way.

  You may not want to make it obvious. It could be heavily hinted at, maybe even try to foreshadow its use, keeping the actual problem general enough that they could solve it in another way. Because even if they solve the problem differently, it can create a fun facepalm moment when they realize they had the perfect tool all along.

  Example: A wide chasm can be crossed by a rickety bridge, or by using the Potion of Spider Climb they've been holding for three levels.

  4) The World Map

  

  One of many things that are tracked in your GM Assistant notes are locations your party has travelled through. And one way you can use these lists is to try to place them all onto a single, simple map. For now, just start by just plotting all the locations as points, you can always make it prettier later.

  This simple exercise will help you visualize the world's scale and where the party travelled. It makes it easier to plot future adventures, and gives players a concrete way to revisit past locations. Also, once you have it, there are many professional artists out there which you could commission to make really pretty maps from your drawing. Once printed, these maps could be a nice prop that you can share with your players, or even as a novelty gift to your party at the end of a successful campaign.

  5) The Trivia God

  

  Finally, if you are feeling a touch of whimsy, consider introducing your party to the "trivia god". Scan your session summaries for small, specific details, and create a short trivia quiz. The next time the party rests, have some sort of disembodied voice or outlandish creature appear and offer rewards for completing this test.

  This can be a fun way to reinforce the world's lore, and can lead to fun roleplaying opportunities, especially if the rewards and punishments are super silly.

  ]]> Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Articles https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-january-2026-dashboard https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-january-2026-dashboard Dashboard, memorable moments enhancements, and UI polish.
  
  

  Happy New Year! We're kicking off 2026 moving the new dashboard out of alpha testing.

  Affiliate Shoutouts

  First, special thanks to our top two affiliates, Dungeons and Randomness and Lost Knights D&D for spreading the word about GM Assistant!

  Interested in becoming an affiliate? Apply at affiliates.gmassistant.app

  New Features

  Campaign Dashboard - Now Available to Everyone!

  After successful testing with our alpha testers, the Campaign Dashboard is now available to all users! This is now the default view when you log in. It brings all your campaigns, sessions, and activity together in one place.

  Improvements & Tweaks

  Memorable Moments Enhancements

  We've added some more support for Memorable Moments:

  • Now included in all export formats (Markdown, YAML, HTML, Homebrewery)
  • Use Find & Replace to update memorable moments along with the rest of your notes
  • Properly cleared when you clear your session notes
  
  

  Tweaks

  ✅ Fixed issue where failed uploads would incorrectly leave behind a blank session

  ✅ Various UI improvements and polish throughout the app

  ✅ Stability and performance improvements

  Alpha Testing Program

  Alpha testers get early access to experimental features and help shape the direction of GM Assistant with their invaluable feedback. It's only been two months and three features have made it through alpha testing!

  What's in Alpha right now you ask? Well, if you're interested in becoming an Alpha tester and helping us build the future of GM Assistant, email me at alpha@gmassistant.app

  What's Next?

  We're continuing to refine the core experience as well as work on some large features that will be in Alpha for the next few months.

  -Alex

  Founder, GM Assistant]]> Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-december-2025-titles-moments-and-settings https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-december-2025-titles-moments-and-settings Session title suggestions, memorable moments, enhanced account settings, and UI improvements.
  
  

  As we wrap up 2025, we've got some exciting updates to share! A couple features have passed through our Alpha testing program and are now available to everyone.

  New Features

  Session Title Suggestions

  Struggling to come up with a catchy name for your session? GM Assistant now generates title suggestions based on the session's content. When editing a session title, you can choose one of the suggestions or use them as inspiration for your own.

  

  Memorable Moments

  This feature automatically extracts quotes, funny moments, and epic moments from your sessions. Never lose track of those clutch rolls or hilarious one-liners again. You can view them in the "Memorable Moments" section on both the Notes and Analysis tabs.

  

  Enhanced Account Settings

  • Transaction History - View your complete credit purchase and usage history
  • Date Format Preferences - Choose between US style (mm/dd/yyyy) or international style (dd/mm/yyyy) for date display throughout the app
  
  

  Improvements

  UI Enhancements

  We've made numerous improvements across the interface to make GM Assistant more polished and easier to use. Better spacing, improved component styling, and smoother interactions throughout.

  Language Support

  Added Hungarian (hu) to our language support list. If you run games in Hungarian or any other non-English language, we'd love to hear your feedback!

  Fixes

  ✅ Fixed issue where default analysis settings were not loading properly for new analyses

  ✅ Fixed mobile bug where some sessions in the list were cut off and could not be scrolled to

  ✅ Fixed upload cancellation behavior - the new session form no longer resets when an upload fails or is cancelled

  ✅ Fixed issue where excessive campaign details (such as very long NPC descriptions) could cause an analysis to fail

  Looking Ahead

  We are working on some exciting features for 2026. Stay tuned!

  Happy holidays, <insert geeky christmas joke here>!

  -Alex

  Founder, GM Assistant]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-november-2025-alpha-testers-and-affiliates https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-november-2025-alpha-testers-and-affiliates Alpha testing program, affiliate opportunities, PAX Unplugged, and continued analysis improvements.
  
  

  Somewhat routine update this month, there's some cool stuff going on behind the scenes that our Alpha testers will get access to first, so more to come about those features as they mature.

  If you are interested in becoming an Alpha tester, please email me at alpha@gmassistant.app

  We are also starting to actively look for Affiliates; if you are someone with an audience and are interested, you can apply to our Affiliate program at affiliates.gmassistant.app

  Andrei and I will be at PAX Unplugged this weekend. If you see someone wearing a GM Assistant shirt it will likely be one of us! I will TRY to post updates to social media.

  Updates

  Analysis Improvements (ongoing)

  • Faster language detection and overall analysis
  • Avoid emphasis on game mechanics (dice rolls, spells) in narrative portions of analysis
  • Avoid recapping a previous read aloud recap
  • Improvement management of lengthy campaign details
  • Minor improvements to accuracy
  • Added stylized recaps for Spanish, German, and French sessions
  
  

  UI design and performance improvements (ongoing)

  • Improved look and feel of minor components, such as dropdown lists
  • Optimized backend API calls for faster load times
  • Retry logic to account for network failures
  
  

  Export field selection and ordering

  • Pick and choose parts of a session for export
  • now includes stylized recaps
  
  

  Frontend error reporting

  Information about issues experienced in the browser is now captured so we can monitor for issues

  Data Processing Audit

  We did a full audit of Data Processing Agreements with all of our service providers to ensure that they continue to treat user data responsibly (no retention, no selling, no AI training, etc)

  Fixes

  ✅ Excessively long NPC/Location/Item/Spell descriptions could cause analysis failure

  ✅ "No Scenes Found" would sometimes appear upon analysis completion, requiring a refresh of the browser tab.

  ]]> Wed, 19 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-october-2025-ama-and-team https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-october-2025-ama-and-team First AMA stream, team expansion, UI preferences, and new session notes workflow.
  
  

  Hey everyone! We've grown the team, hosted our first AMA stream, and shipped some quality-of-life improvements you've been asking for.

  The Team is Growing!

  I'm excited to announce that GM Assistant is no longer just me! We're building a small team:

  • Andrei - Part-time contractor working on development and social media. He's also a game dev, checkout out his fast paced strategic card game Hidden Marks
  • Courtney Stover - Part-time project manager helping keep everything organized (check her out and her Roll Play Grow podcast for tabletop entrepreneurs!)

  Having help means we can move faster on features and improvements while maintaining the quality and philosophy you expect from GM Assistant.

  First AMA Stream!

  Earlier this month, we held our first Ask Me Anything stream where we discussed GM Assistant's mission, company values, and what's coming next.

  The full stream is available on YouTube with timestamps for easy navigation:

  Watch the AMA on YouTube

  Topics covered:

  • 0:00:00 - Introduction & Stream Start
  • 0:03:12 - What is GM Assistant?
  • 0:05:00 - Alex's Background & Team
  • 0:10:15 - Product Timeline & Features
  • 0:16:04 - Company Values & Philosophy
  • 0:24:00 - Responsible AI & Ethics
  • 0:26:47 - Q&A: Comparing to Competitors
  • 0:30:16 - Q&A: Player Attribution Issues
  • 0:36:12 - Q&A: Campaign Details & Search
  • 0:40:00 - Q&A: Subscription Pricing
  • 0:41:50 - Q&A: Integrations & VTT Plans
  • 0:43:20 - Q&A: Entity Organization Features
  • 0:46:56 - Chatbot
  • 0:52:30 - Chatbot Features Explained
  • 0:59:30 - Live Chatbot Demo
  • 1:05:57 - 2026 Roadmap
  • 1:07:41 - Closing & Next Steps

  What's New?

  UI Preferences

  You can now override your light/dark mode system settings in your account settings.

  New Auto Copy Workflow

  We've reorganized the session notes interface to make it a little more streamlined. Now by default, analysis results will be automatically copied to your session notes when the analysis completes.

  Performance Improvements

  The app now only sends the fields you've actually changed, making saves faster and more efficient. As well as a couple other small tweaks to make things feel more zippy.

  Minor Enhancements

  ✅ Duplicate audio detection - GM Assistant now warns you if you try to upload the same audio file you've used before, preventing accidental duplicate analyses. Don't worry, we do this with sha256 hashes, so we still do not keep any of your audio around.

  ✅ Scene list updates - Fixed an issue where the scene list wouldn't update properly when adding new scenes

  ✅ Improved drag-and-drop - Elements no longer accidentally expand/collapse immediately after dragging them

  ✅ UI polish - Consistent input field colors, better modal overlay colors, improved button spacing, and other visual refinements

  What's Next?

  We're continuing to focus on UI improvements and redesigns to make GM Assistant more intuitive and pleasant to use.

  Coming Soon: Memorable Moments - We're working on a new feature that will automatically extract quotes, funny moments, and epic moments from your game sessions. Never forget those hilarious one-liners or clutch roles again!

  PAX Unplugged - I'll be attending PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia this November! If you're going to be there, let me know on Discord I'll give users a free GM Assistant pin while supplies last :)

  

  We appreciate your continued support and feedback. Keep those suggestions coming! The Feedback button is your friend!

  -Alex

  Founder, GM Assistant]]> Sat, 25 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-september-2025-brief https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-september-2025-brief New "Brief" analysis option at 60 credits per hour, plus removal of the reanalysis button.
  
  

  "Brief" vs "Comprehensive" options

  I’m super hyped to announce that we’ve added a higher-level, “brief” analysis at only 60 credits per hour. That’s $2 for the average session (2.9 hr) via the standard subscription option.

  The most common piece of feedback we get is that GMA is too expensive, causing folks to pick and choose which sessions they analyze or just not use the service at all. I’m really hoping this opens up GMA to more tables.

  You can see an example of brief vs comprehensive on the main page

  Brief

  • 60 credits per hour
  • $0.72 - $1.20
  • Same quality, just less detail
  • Higher-level recap
  • Major scenes and entities
  • Faster analysis time
  • Fewer recap "styles" (English only)
    • Full
    • Short
    • Classic
    • Snarky

    Comprehensive

    • 100 credits per hour
    • $1.20 - $2.00
    • Same as the old standard
    • Detailed Recap and scene outline
    • Most entities captured
    • All recap "styles" (English only)
      • Full
      • Short
      • Classic
      • Snarky
      • Limerick
      • Middle-English (Chaucer)

      Removal of the "Reanalysis" button

      Reanalysis was originally added to make it easy to "retry" when something failed or to see how the results can vary. We've removed this option to avoid confusion (and folks wasting credits thinking it would be vastly different results), it was also not good for GMA costs on the backend.

      Now if someone wants to reanalyze, they would just remake their session. This is also a step towards a rework of the user flow that currently requires copying notes from the analysis into the session notes, another common point of confusion.

      That's all for now, stay tuned. We are JUST. GETTING. STARTED.]]> Sat, 13 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-august-2025-covid-and-homebrewery https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-august-2025-covid-and-homebrewery Recovering from COVID after conventions, new Homebrewery export feature, and analysis improvements.
      
      

      Hello!

      The past month has been a whirlwind for me. Went to GalaxyCon and Gen Con, then got COVID (my first time)! Knocked me out of commission for about 2 weeks. That means there haven't been a lot of advancements for GMA I can report on, but now that I'm mostly recovered, it's time to focus on delivering SO MUCH before I’m distracted by the next con, PAX Unplugged in November.

      💡 Fun fact: Did you know GMA already supports Dark Mode? It uses your system settings! We will likely add an override for this in Account Settings soon.

      What's New?

      Export your sessions directly to Homebrewery

      Homebrewery is a very popular tool in the D&D community. It's a great way to create formatted handouts/pages in the style of classic D&D modules. You can tweak them how you see fit and even export to PDF.

      Here's how to use this new feature:

      1. Select Homebrewery export format - From your session's export options, choose the Homebrewery format

      

      2. Choose the fields and their order you want to export

      

      3. Edit/tweak/etc in Homebrewery - Use the edit link to customize the styling, layout, and content to your heart's content

      

      4. Share from Homebrewery - Once you're happy with your customized document, you can share it directly from Homebrewery with your players or save it as a PDF for offline use

      

      Session Recap Improvements

      New recaps should now have little to no mention of recaps from previous sessions that were said/read to the party during the session.

      What's next?

      The Roadmap has been tweaked, here's a few things coming up next month:

      • UI flow rework, replacing the current "Upload & Analyze" → "Copy to session" flow
      • Many other UI improvements
      • A new, mysterious, special analysis option
      
      

      -Alex

      Founder, GM Assistant]]> Sat, 23 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-july-2025-transcripts-and-languages https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-july-2025-transcripts-and-languages Improved transcript formats with timestamps, expanded language support, and campaign item tracking.
      
      

      Extra thanks to those of you who filled out the user survey a few weeks ago. I have tons of feedback to sift through. If anyone has feedback that they didn't get to put into the survey, I watch feedback from the in-app Feedback button like a hawk.

      For the next two weeks, I'll be taking a 'break' and attending both GalaxyCon Raleigh and Gen Con. Let me know if I might see you!

      So what's new?

      Improved Transcripts

      ✅ Standard formats available - Text, JSON, WebVTT, SRT

      ✅ Phrase level timestamps

      ✅ Spelling corrected proper nouns

      ❌ Speaker separation (some day!)

      WEBVTT Example

      00:00:09.119 --> 00:00:13.859
      In the aftermath of a devastating battle in Thornbrook Village against goblins and ogres,
      
      00:00:14.380 --> 00:00:22.899
      Sebastian, Björn, and Jaxon perished while Sylas, Sulain, and an injured Joonie found a refuge in a nearby cave with other survivors.

      Campaign Details: Items

      You can now add Important Items to the Campaign details to let the tool know about all those fancy and odd named artifacts in your campaign.

      Additional Languages

      Full support: English (en)

      Beta support (automated tests to ensure continued support):

      • French (fr)
      • German (de)
      • Spanish (es)

      Alpha support (user tested):

      • Afrikaans (af)
      • Cantonese (yue)
      • Czech (cs)
      • Dutch (nl)
      • Finnish (fi)
      • Greek (el)
      • Hebrew (he)
      • Italian (it)
      • Norwegian Nynorsk (nn)
      • Portuguese (pt)
      • Tagalog (tl)
      • Turkish (tr)
      • Ukrainian (uk)
      • Welsh (cy)

      Minor Enhancements

      ✅ Added "Copy to Clipboard" buttons for textboxes

      ✅ Improved automatic language detection, especially in cases where multiple languages are spoken

      ✅ Small performance improvements to the UI.

      ✅ Small tweaks to lesson the chance of character action misattributions

      🐞 Fixed: Issue where session notes may be so large that editing them became impossible, resulting in timeouts.

      🐞 Fixed: Copy and paste directly from the page content

      The notes sections now have a standard font, allowing you to simply copy and paste directly out of the app

      🐞 Fixed: Chronological ordering of Scenes

      ❌ We now disallow AAC files from Craig (when we can detect it)

      The Craig.chat Discord bot has a bug where AAC files for multi-track audio are often corrupted, resulting in missing audio and incorrect audio duration. Previously, we only showed a warning but now we do not allow upload at all in this case.

      What's Next?

      The roadmap is in a state of flux as we sift through user feedback and plan out some major changes. You can expect some additional tweaks to analysis quality and some analysis "configuration" options in the near term.

      -Alex

      Founder, GM Assistant]]> Tue, 22 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-june-2025-one-year-anniversary https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-june-2025-one-year-anniversary One year of GM Assistant! Increased analysis detail, expanded capacity, and a look at what's next.
      
      

      GM Assistant is a Year Old!

      The company is still just me (Alex) with occasional help from some contractors. Running the business has been an immense learning experience for me and, to be honest, a bit of a rollercoaster. We've gone from 0 users to consistently hundreds of users analyzing sessions every month 😅

      Most of this first year has been improving the core feature, user experience/quality of life and coding up many, semi-secret experiments for possible future features.

      You all have helped shape the tool via the Feedback button, Discord, and Email, which I really, really appreciate. Please keep it up.

      For this next year, I hope to continue to improve the tool and grow the user base. I've switched to planning in 3-4 month dev cycles. This allows me to adapt to user feedback and new technology relatively quickly, but also be productive by focusing for months at a time without those shiny distractions.

      So what's new?

      Increased Analysis Detail

      We found a few ways to squeeze out way more details without adding more costs. Analyses will now come with way more detail. This means longer recaps, more scenes, and longer descriptions for NPCs, Locations, Items, etc. If you are like me, though, you can still use the "short" recap that remains at 2 paragraphs to read aloud to your group.

      Expanded Capacity

      Some of you may have noticed this month that analyses were taking longer than the usual 15 minutes. This is due to more users and some users doing large backlogs of sessions. It was also exacerbated by the increased analysis detail which adds some processing time.

      Thanks to FB marketplace, we got some more GPUs (running off our local solar) so we can do more analyses concurrently without sending more up to the cloud.

      We also secured increased rate-limits with other providers which will allow us to have larger bursts of concurrent analyses.

      Bugs

      ✅ Fixed:Increased limits on session fields as new analysis details were sometimes beyond the limits! This resulted in a "400 Request body validation error" alert when clicking "Copy to Session" or "Save".

      • Number of scenes from 40 → 100, Recaps from 15,000 characters to 50,000. Appropriate field limits are important to prevent abuse and to keep the system performant.
      • We will also add a more explicit error message in this case.

        ✅ Fixed:Browser would run out of memory if a user rapidly selected multiple audio files. This was due to us loading the first 5 minutes of each file in an attempt to detect silent audio. This has been throttled to 4 checks at a time.

        ✅ Fixed: Issue where it would appear an analysis was stuck at 100%. This was due to an issue where we stopped checking the analysis status if it was at 100% but was also not yet set to "completed", thus it required a page refresh.

        ✅ Fixed: Analysis details would sometimes be missing large swaths of details. This was due to parts of our analysis pipeline losing information. We've added sanity checks and tweaks to those parts of the pipeline to ensure this doesn't happen.

        ✅ Fixed: Occasionally, unicode characters would not be rendered properly in session notes. This mostly caused issues for non-English languages.

        ✅ Fixed:Tutorial popup not showing for new users

        ❌ Confirmed:Copy and paste from fields other than "Recap" into another app may fail due to lack of the "Barlow" font. We will work to fix this by changing the font used for displaying notes to a standard font. Workaround is to export the notes.

        What's Next?

        The following items are the current focus before we move onto the next set of features. Check out our Roadmap

        Improved Transcripts

        • ✅ Timestamps
        • ✅ Spelling corrections

        Improved Spelling Hints

        • ✅ Supplying phonetics
        • ✅ Better detection of spoken out out spelling hints

        More Analysis Options

        • ✅ Field selection
        • ✅ Give text hints per analysis

        Past-Session Context

        • ✅ Use information from previous session notes to improve the analysis
          • NOTE: Currently, only details in the Campaign Details page are used during analysis and not past sessions.

            🥂 Here's to another year of not taking notes.

            -Alex

            Founder, GM Assistant]]> Sat, 21 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/shadowdark-rules-cheatsheets-everyday-dragons https://gmassistant.app/blog/shadowdark-rules-cheatsheets-everyday-dragons Quick reference sheets for Shadowdark RPG players, featured in Everyday Dragons Issue 2!
            
            

            Hey everyone! I put together some Shadowdark cheatsheets that I thought you might find useful at your tables.

            Built for Quick Reference

            Whether you're a brand new Shadowdark player trying to wrap your head around the rules, or a veteran who just wants the key info at your fingertips during play, these sheets are designed to keep the game moving.

            The cheatsheets cover the essential mechanics you'll reference most often during play.

            Check Them Out

            You can grab the cheatsheets from the Google Doc here. Feel free to print them out, share them with your group, or modify them for your own table's needs.

            Featured in Everyday Dragons Issue 2!

            These cheatsheets were featured in Everyday Dragons Issue 2, where they got some fantastic art and much better formatting than my original versions. If you haven't checked out Everyday Dragons yet, definitely give it a look!

            Check out GM Assistant

            Hey, while you're here, if you're running Shadowdark (or any TTRPG) sessions, you might want to check out GM Assistant for automated session notes. It's been a game-changer for keeping track of what actually happened during those epic sessions without having to scribble notes while GMing.

            You can also sign up to stay updated on new features and GM tools we're working on.

            ]]> Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Articles https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-may-2025-subscriptions-and-theriathon https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-may-2025-subscriptions-and-theriathon Subscriptions are here! Plus transcript access, auto-deletion of audio, and a look at our focused future.
            
            

            Hey Everyone, lots going over here in GMA land.

            Community Spotlight: Theria-Thon 2025

            Mark your calendars for Saturday, May 31, 2025! The Dungeons and Randomness podcast is hosting their 13th annual Theria-Thon - a 12-hour Dungeons & Dragons marathon set in their unique Theria world from Noon to Midnight EST.

            GM Assistant: Our Focus Moving Forward

            I'm running GM Assistant as a solo founder without outside investment. This means we need to stay focused on our main goal: making it super easy to get great session notes.

            For the past 9 months, I've been exploring and testing many different, large features. While this has been extremely valuable, I'm now narrowing our focus to our core mission until we grow our team. I've reprioritized our roadmap to reflect this more focused approach.

            We've received many requests for advanced note formatting and campaign management features. Instead of trying to build everything myself, I'll focus on making it easier to export your notes to your favorite, existing note-taking tools.

            The Campaign Companion Chatbot feature would be more valuable once we have better note storage and organization. For now, we'll keep focus on making the best possible session notes tool.

            App Updates

            Subscriptions & Customer Portal

            We've finally rolled out the long requested subscription options. This is a great way to get a little extra discount on some credits each month.

            Standard Plan – $9/month

            • 750 credits (7.5 hrs of audio)
            • Great for consistent GMs
            • $15 value for just $9
            
            

            Pro Plan – $25/month

            • 2,000 credits (20 hrs of audio)
            • Ideal for professional GMs and multiple campaigns
            • $40 value for $25
            
            

            Need more? You can always buy bulk credits on top of your subscription if needed.

            Transcript Access

            We've added a transcript tab on sessions. Now you can see and download the raw words spoken by your party. This tab should evolve quite a bit over the next few months to have more transcript formats and other shiny improvements.

            Audio is now auto-deleted

            Now once GMA is done with your audio, we delete it so no need to do this yourself.

            In the future we may add features that need to call back to audio, in which it will be back to manual delete.

            ---

            As always, we appreciate your feedback and support as we continue to improve GM Assistant. Feel free to reach out on Discord if you have any questions about the new subscription plans or other features!

            ]]> Sat, 17 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-march-2025-ui-and-analysis https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-march-2025-ui-and-analysis UI/UX enhancements, analysis improvements, and a peek at what's coming next with Campaign Companion.
            
            

            Notable Updates

            1. UI/UX Enhancements
               • Additional warnings to catch user mistakes early (such as silent audio)
               • Various performance improvements
               • Look and feel refinements
               • Sessions list now sorts by played date (descending), then reverse alphabetical
                 • For sessions played on the same day, organize them as such:
                   • "Breaking Dawn - Part 2"
                   • "Breaking Dawn - Part 1"
                   • Analysis Improvements
                     • Further refinements to the analysis process
                     • Added manual audio language selector for multilingual games
                       • Perfect for parties who code-switch between languages during play
                       • Provides more reliable results than auto-detection for multilingual sessions
                       • Security hardening and abuse detection

                         What's Next?

                         "What if your campaign notes could talk back?" Get ready for Campaign Companion!

                         There is so much coming, with much more to be announced as we get closer to the Campaign Companion launch.

                         Follow along on our Roadmap Trello Board.]]> Fri, 28 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/ai-welcome-to-the-gray-area https://gmassistant.app/blog/ai-welcome-to-the-gray-area Here at GM Assistant, we've drawn a line in the sand of what we find acceptable. We utilize AI thoughtfully, focusing on enhancing efficiency without overshadowing human creativity.
                         
                         

                         **Disclaimer** This post is barely a drop in the bucket when it comes to the concerns and impact around AI. Even the nitty gritty issues are loaded with nuance. Even "what is AI?" is a terrible question to try to answer. I've tried to keep the language layman friendly. Also, there's plenty I don't know or understand and my opinions are ever-changing.

                         AI is an avalanche coming down the mountain of humanity.

                         How do you react when you look up the mountain?

                         Here at GM Assistant, we've drawn a line in the sand of what we find acceptable. If you don't agree with where we drew the line, that's perfectly fine! Below, I will muse around some concerns and our philosophy on them. Our focus is to be transparent so that users and prospective users know where we stand, it is not meant to change your mind. In fact, please do your own research.

                         Concern: Unauthorized use of intellectual property in the pre-training and/or fine-tuning of AI models.

                         We are trying to strike a tricky balance here. We do not generate AI-created artwork, writing, or creative content. Our AI is strictly used for organizing, transcribing, and analyzing user-provided input; not for producing anything new.

                         Because we don't generate anything, we can't plagiarize or replace human artists, writers, or creators. Even if the AI models we use were trained on a mix of data, including copyrighted works, we are not using them in a way that replicates or profits from creative expression.

                         Our focus is on assisting human creativity, not replacing it. A GM's world, story, and characters are their own; our AI simply helps them track and organize those ideas more efficiently. No one's livelihood or artistic integrity should be impacted by our tool.

                         Concern: Use of AI replacing work that could potentially be performed (or performed better) by a human.

                         Unfortunately, the same AI technology that's curing disease is simply being used when it shouldn't be. When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I'm looking at you, AI written emails. And a dishonorable mention to 99% of Facebook posts while we are at it.

                         We don't use AI for things such as generating advertisements, spamming email lists, writing blog posts, etc. When it comes to what we produce for our product, I really want everything to be deliberate and well crafted.

                         Concern: A plethora of half-baked, sub-par AI tools and content flooding the market.

                         There's already an overwhelming amount of AI-generated content and AI tools that don't solve actual problems.

                         We are addressing this at GM Assistant by ensuring we are solving real problems and providing significant value. Not just calling some API on your behalf and up-charging you. Which is scummy and not a sustainable business approach anyways.

                         Concern: The massive energy needs to train AI models, and to a much lesser extent, use them.

                         While I actually believe/hope the big money behind AI will eventually get us over the hump in solving our energy crisis, in the short term there are real implications. Compute in data centers is straining our power plants, burning fossil fuels, and requiring copious amounts of water pumped from local water sources to cool said power plants (water is evaporated via cooling towers).

                         The big power consumption of AI happens in the AI model training process, which is a one-time energy usage. Inference is using the model after it's trained, while still requiring power, it's way less than training. They say inference for a ChatGPT "message" takes 10x the power of a pre-AI Google search.

                         We run most of our AI inference on my old gaming computer under my desk, powered by my whole house solar. We don't do any AI training.

                         I'd say power-wise, for every hour of audio we analyze for our users, it's like I played a video game with modern graphics for about 5 minutes. When we need to scale, we cloud-burst to Google Cloud. Whom I assure you, is doing that inference as power efficiently as they can. To do the math, hypothetically, 1000 users analyzing two, 4-hour sessions a month is as if I played video games for 27.8 days of that month. I.E. half as much power as my AC unit in the summer months.

                         ---

                         With all this said, I'm in the same pickle jar as everyone else. If I knew how to get these technologies regulated or ablated from our society, I'd be all for it (another loaded topic). Heck, let's get rid of the internet while we are at it -PLEASE. But alas, I am forced to adapt, choosing to attempt to out-ski the AI avalanche to avoid being buried in it.

                         - Alex

                         ]]> Thu, 06 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Articles https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-feb-2025-discounts-and-donations https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-feb-2025-discounts-and-donations We've added huge bulk credit discounts, international currency support, campaign features.
                         
                         

                         When we launched the app, I didn't fully realize we were also building a community. Thanks to everyone who has been overwhelming me with feedback, suggestions, and spreading the word; keep it up!

                         Critical Role Foundation One-Shot: Freaky Thursday

                         On Jan. 29th, we ran a 25% off sale to help the Critical Role Foundation support LA wildfire relief. All savings had by you guys, we matched in donations to CRF during their one-shot. We donated $230 USD! Thanks so much, please make good use of those credits!

                         Users around the world! 🇩🇪 🇫🇷 🇪🇸 🇨🇳 🇳🇿 🇮🇹 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇦🇺 🇸🇪

                         • We now fully support non-USD currencies during checkout.
                         • Non-English language support has been in Alpha for months and is working well.
                         • Special thanks to our German and French testers!

                         App Updates

                         Bulk Pricing & Sales

                         

                         The more credits you buy at once, the more you save. Subscription plans coming soon.

                         Copy to Campaign Button

                         

                         Copy an NPC or Location from session notes to your campaign in one click. If an entity already exists, it will append their descriptions.

                         Campaign Sharing

                         You can now set a campaign page to public. This means that anyone with the public campaign link will see your campaign details and a list of all public sessions in that campaign. You no longer need to send a new link to your players for every session.

                         Analysis Enhancements

                         • A fair bit of reworking on the backend to allow for better "big picture" awareness and extracting more details. You can now expect:
                           • Longer full recaps
                           • More "entities" being detected
                           • Scenes with short descriptions in addition to their events
                           • Limerick style recap added for English analyses
                           • We are always refining the analysis process. If you see something weird or notice a dip in quality, please let us know (Discord).

                           What's Next?

                           • Transcription Access
                           • A few more analysis tweaks and improvements
                           • Analysis "hints"
                           • Cheeky announcement about our next massive feature!
                           ]]> Fri, 14 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-jan-2025-rebranding-and-multitrack https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-jan-2025-rebranding-and-multitrack New year, new domain! Plus multi-track audio support.
                           
                           

                           Happy New Year! We're kicking off 2025 with some cool stuff.

                           Rebranding to gmassistant.app

                           You may have noticed we rebranded from .ai -> .app! This is to prevent confusion about what it is we strive to do here. We would like to lead with the real value we provide and not use AI as a buzzword or give the wrong impression. We still want to maintain transparency; the FAQ and our AI philosophy has not changed. We continue to be open to any and all AI oriented questions and concerns.

                           Notable Updates and Features

                           1. Multi-File Audio Support
                              • Combine multiple audio recordings into a single session analysis
                              • Perfect for split recordings or multiple audio tracks (speakers/music)
                              • Compatible with Craig bot Discord recordings
                              • Coming soon: Enhanced speaker recognition across tracks
                              • Quality of Life Improvements
                                • Fixed credit estimate display for reanalyses
                                • Improved UI feedback for audio file handling
                                • Added retry option for failed analyses (no more new session required)
                                • Introduced detailed feedback options for analyses rated under 5 stars

                                Important Notes for Multi-Track Users

                                When using multiple audio tracks:

                                • For podcast-style recordings (individual tracks per speaker), accurate start times are crucial for proper alignment
                                • Craig bot recordings automatically handle track alignment through silence padding
                                • We're actively monitoring feedback on this feature - please share any issues or confusion you encounter via Discord or the Feedback button!

                                Coming Next

                                1. User Experience Enhancements
                                   • Various quality-of-life improvements
                                   • Performance improvements
                                   • Analysis Improvements
                                     • Optimization of analysis processes
                                     • Additional detail options
                                     • Access to session transcriptions
                                     
                                     

                                     As always, we appreciate your feedback and support as we continue to improve GM Assistant. Also, tell your friends about us!]]> Fri, 10 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-dec-2024-tooltips-and-tweaks https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-dec-2024-tooltips-and-tweaks Despite some holidays and PAX Unplugged, we still managed to get a few things done this month. Tooltips, bug fixes, and expanding language support
                                     
                                     

                                     Despite some holidays and PAX Unplugged, we still managed to get a few things done this month.

                                     Notable Updates and Fixes

                                     1. Tooltips
                                        • Added helpful tooltips throughout the app to provide context and guidance right when you need it.
                                        • Click or touch the "?" icons
                                        • Bug Fixes
                                          • Fixed a bug where too much silence or too few words in the first 3 minutes of audio would somehow convince our system the session was in Norwegian. Takk for tålmodigheten! (Thanks for your patience!)
                                          • Resolved timezone-related issues where session dates could appear off by ±1 day.
                                          • Backend Improvements
                                            • Enhanced SEO to make GM Assistant more discoverable.
                                            • Implemented various scaling and debugging improvements to keep things running smoothly behind the scenes.

                                            Black Friday Insights

                                            Our first Black Friday sale taught us a lot about what you're looking for in terms of credit packages. While many of you jumped at the chance for bulk credits at a deeper discount, we also heard that some would prefer smaller packages with modest discounts (like $50 at 20% off versus $100 at 30% off). We're taking this feedback into account for future promotions!

                                            Major World Language Support (Alpha)

                                            Our German-speaking testers have been providing invaluable feedback as we expand our language support. We're still actively seeking testers for other major languages - if you run your tabletop games in a language other than English, we'd love to have you try out the system in exchange for free credits!

                                            Interested in helping us test? Drop us a line and join our growing community of international game masters.

                                            Happy holidays and see you in 2025!]]> Thu, 12 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/menagerie-press-interview-hyborian-adventures https://gmassistant.app/blog/menagerie-press-interview-hyborian-adventures We sat down with GM Assistant user, William Murakami-Brundage, to discuss their Shadowdark supplement "Hyborian Adventures"...
                                            
                                            

                                            We sat down with GM Assistant user, William Murakami-Brundage, to discuss their Shadowdark supplement "Hyborian Adventures," which is currently being crowdfunded here: Hyborian Adventures for Shadowdark RPG.

                                            1. For those who might be new to either Shadowdark RPG or Robert E. Howard's work, could you give us a brief overview of what Hyborian Adventures brings?
                                            
                                            

                                            Shadowdark is a popular, approachable, quick-to-learn system that uses the best features of D&D 5E. It combines these with an intense role-playing game experience where you, as the player, determine your actions. With a focus on getting into the action and focusing on play, not rules, Shadowdark won four industry awards, including Best Game 2024.

                                            Hyborian Adventures converts five of Robert E. Howard's public-domain Conan stories into RPG adventures. We did our best to retain the spirit and story beats of those stories while making them playable in an RPG format.

                                            2. What first drew you to Howard's stories, and what made you think "this would make an amazing RPG supplement"?
                                            
                                            

                                            Howard's stories are iconic. In many ways, Conan, Kull, and other characters are the foundations of sword and sorcery. Weird Tales was a seminal publication way ahead of its time. Hyborian Adventures makes a great series for role-playing. Players can either play their characters, treading the dark halls of the Monkey-God's temple anew, or a GM could create their version of Conan and his motley crew for extra fun.

                                            3. Could you tell us about Menagerie Press and your journey in the TTRPG space?
                                            
                                            

                                            Menagerie Press started around 2016 with Careless Adventurer's Guide to Hazards and then Descent Into Mirefen. Before that, my friends and I wrote about 20 Adventurers League adventures for D&D 5E's official Organized Play system. After some significant, unpleasant Organized Play rules changes (and weird adventure design mandates), I decided to "roll my own," as we say here in Oregon, and started Menagerie Press as an outlet for my adventures.

                                            4. The Hyborian Age is a fascinating setting between prehistoric times and recorded history. How would you describe its appeal to modern gamers?
                                            
                                            

                                            I'd place the Hyborian Age in an almost post-apocalyptic milieu. The Atlanteans have come and gone. The world is just barely entering a new Iron Age. Unlike the more sanitized, commercial worlds you find from major established publishers, there's room to explore and tell a story. And, even outside of Hyborian Adventures, hopefully, this inspires the RPG community to sharpen their Argosian blades a little more.

                                            5. Could you share a favorite moment or scene from these adventures that captures what players can expect?
                                            
                                            

                                            Without too many spoilers, there's the classic story "People of the Black Circle," one of Howard's strongest short stories of this genre. In the story are the servants of Yimsha, these black-robed man-monsters who flicker to and fro, doing the Master's bidding. In Hyborian Adventures, the adventurers likely meet and kill these Black Seers. Still, there's a bit of a horror motif because, like Jason or Freddy Kreuger, these Black Seers reconstitute themselves until their hidden hearts are destroyed - it's almost like the lich's phylactery.

                                            6. How did you modernize these classic tales while maintaining their sword & sorcery essence? Were there specific elements you felt were crucial to preserve?
                                            
                                            

                                            First, there was a close reading and study of the stories themselves. I read each one several times, listened to the available audiobooks, and did a lot of background research. I wanted to understand the point in time these stories were published and written to get the context of the creative intent. The audiobooks (more audio stories) were helpful for pronunciation and tempo - knowing where the pacing quickens was helpful when designing encounters.

                                            It was crucial to preserve the significant villains and treasure or iconic traps. Beyond that, there was a lot of adaptation - I was given a basket of ingredients and a sketch of what the final product should look like, but the steps in between were left wide open.

                                            7. The collection features five distinct adventures, from the mountain fortress of Yimsha to the black river of Zarkheba. Which one proved most challenging to adapt, and what unique gameplay experiences can players expect from each?
                                            
                                            

                                            The House of Aram Baksh was the hardest to convert, from Shadows of Zamboula. In the short story, Conan stays the night at Baksh's hostel because he's broke and needs a place to rest after gambling away his coin. I needed a story hook and place that players (and thus, characters) would accept as in-game fiction, so I made Aram Baksh's house more of a brothel, gambling hall, and house of ill repute. I stuck to the original story beat of Baksh being a vile, wretched toad of a man. Given how things unfold in RPG sessions, I'd wager that some gaming tables will mow down Baksh and his entire operation while others will be more discrete.

                                            8. For game masters excited to run these adventures, what advice would you give for capturing that classic sword & sorcery feel at their table?
                                            
                                            

                                            • Make your campaign human-centric. PCs should be only humans; and demi-humans remain obscure, rare encounters.
                                            • Embrace the gritty nature of survival. Coin is scarce and fleeting, while adventure is plentiful.
                                            • No permanently safe space - roving and traveling are essential.
                                            • Magical items are rare, dangerous, and often cursed. Magic is corrupting and treacherous.
                                            • There's no universal good versus evil; if there is, good isn't guaranteed victory.
                                            
                                            9. On a different note, you've been using GM Assistant in your gaming. Could you tell us about your experience with it as a game master?
                                            
                                            

                                            I saw an ad for an assistant and took a chance; I'm glad I did. I've heard that AI is pretty good at transcription and summarizing, and I figured an RPG session would be less complex than a medical appointment. It's been great for capturing high- and medium-level notes about our sessions. At the start of each session, I turn on my phone's audio memo and record the table's audio, then upload it to GMassistant that evening.

                                            I run in-person games, so there's a ton of background noise - Battletech players cheering exploding mechs, D&D tables saving against dragon fire, tons of Magic players dueling for prizes. It's not a quiet environment, but GMassistant has no issues getting critical story points specific to our games. After generating the summary, I export it to Markup and create a blog post on my RPG blog, Dubious Heroes. Takes me about 15 minutes, including 5-10 for audio processing.

                                            10. For GMs who might be considering GM Assistant, could you share a memorable moment where it enhanced your game?
                                            
                                            

                                            I run three West Marches/open-world games - each is every other week, and all three games share an in-game universe and region. So there's a lot to keep track of, and the outcome of an adventure ripples down across every other group. GMAssistant has been fantastic for keeping organized, thorough notes - and instead of having to recap each session or taking notes while GMing, I can record the audio and have a complete summary ready in 10 minutes. Now, when my players ask, "What happened last session?" I can drop the blog post.

                                            11. Many GMs are curious about incorporating AI tools into their prep workflow. How has GM Assistant changed the way you prepare for and run your games?
                                            
                                            

                                            A big part of GMAssistant is that I'm offloading the extra work. I didn't keep notes before, and told my players, "Events can and will change from session to session because I don't remember everything, and I'll be too busy GMing to note down everything." Now, I have a history that is incredibly useful for building a region and world. GMAssistant lets me take my world-building to the next level by notating our sessions, so I don't miss things.

                                            I am 100% an AI skeptic when it comes to RPGs. I wouldn't use AI to GM a game. The purpose of AI is to do the work that nobody wants to do, not replace the best parts of being human. Computers are great for video games and data crunching, not creating art. GMAssistant is filling that niche - doing the RPG work that nobody did at my games.

                                            
                                            

                                            Don't forget to read more about their project on Backerkit! Hyborian Adventures]]> Sun, 01 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Articles https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-nov-2024-session-notes https://gmassistant.app/blog/dev-update-nov-2024-session-notes Find/Replace text, Move Sessions, PAX Unplugged
                                            
                                            

                                            App Updates

                                            1. Find & Replace for session notes
                                               • Now easily correct spelling mistakes in your session notes in one fell swoop.
                                               • Change the campaign for a session
                                                 • Whoops, accidentally make a session in the wrong campaign?
                                                 • Just use the session menu to move it to its proper home.
                                                 • Bug: VLC Player FLAC export
                                                   • Mitigated a bug where if you exported FLAC with VLC player, the audio file has no metadata. Currently, you will see "Infinity" as the credit estimate, but it will still work. The real issue is with VLC player.
                                                   • Major World Language Support
                                                     • Support for non-English languages is currently in Alpha
                                                     • If you or anyone you know plays TTRPGs in a language other than English, give us a shout. We are offering free credits for those who can be early testers.
                                                     • Input AND Output. Support includes analyzing non-English audio and getting the notes back in the same language.
                                                     • A blog!
                                                       • It will be home to some hot takes, GM tips, and dev updates like this one.
                                                       • Check out the posts we have so far!

                                                       Coming Soon

                                                       1. Extra Analysis details (no extra cost)
                                                          • We've heard your feedback! Everyone wants even more details.
                                                          • We will work towards this while also making sure that the simple, immediate value is still provided (such as an easy-to-reference short recap). Just to be transparent, the more details, the more it costs us on the backend, so that is part of the equation.
                                                          • Folks have asked for extremely detailed synopses, battle breakdowns, XP tracking, and things of that nature. We will focus on adding some of this before net-new features coming in 2025.
                                                          • Roadmap 2025
                                                            • Keep an eye on our Roadmap page.
                                                            • Discounted credits
                                                              • We are working on ways to mitigate the cost of the service, especially for frequent users.
                                                              • PAX Unplugged!
                                                                • I will be at PAXU in Philly, let me know on Discord if you're there! Definitely looking to game or get coffee with folks.
                                                                ]]> Sat, 16 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Development Updates https://gmassistant.app/blog/running-dungeons-and-dragons-for-minimal-burnout https://gmassistant.app/blog/running-dungeons-and-dragons-for-minimal-burnout I absolutely hate grunt work and deadlines. That's why I strive to be a low to no prep Dungeon Master ...
                                                                
                                                                

                                                                I absolutely hate grunt work and deadlines. That's why I strive to be a low to no prep Dungeon Master but I still want to maintain a high standard of play. Currently, I GM virtual sessions with my scattered group of 6 friends in a Homebrew Dungeons & Dragons 5e (not 2024 rules yet) campaign.

                                                                Embracing the Art of Minimal Prep

                                                                Over the years, I've burned out from doing too much prep, especially on things my players never ended up exploring. Recently, I've begun honing my approach to running engaging D&D sessions without getting bogged down in hours of preparation.

                                                                My Essential Toolkit

                                                                1. FoundryVTT: FoundryVTT isn't so bad for a VTT; though I'm starting to think I really just want a virtual whiteboard. I've stopped over-customizing everything and now I simply use a VTT for my players to click the buttons without having to learn physical dice rolls or their character sheets :P It is also really nice for managing combat, even if I basically just use a grid and tokens, I don't have to write anything down to keep track of initiative and NPC health.
                                                                2. Discord & Craig.chat: Discord serves as our main hub for voice and video chats. I also use Craig.chat to record our audio sessions. Having recordings is a lifesaver for recalling plot details. I don't even really take notes anymore and just let gmassistant.app do it for me.
                                                                3. 5e.tools DM Screen: This is a digital DM screen that basically just has 5e SRD rules up on it at all times.
                                                                4. ChatGPT (or another AI chat): When the party veers off-course and I need help thinking of an NPC name or a quick description on the fly, AI chat tools are my go-to. They help me maintain the illusion of a well-prepared world without the prep work.
                                                                5. Kobold Fight Club Plus: Balancing encounters can be a headache, especially with a party of six. Kobold Fight Club Plus simplifies this process by allowing me to create balanced combat scenarios tailored to my group's level and size. If I have an encounter pop up out of nowhere, I can just put in the enemies (or enemies of similar CR) and get an idea on how close it may be to a TPK.
                                                                6. Notion: All my campaign notes, world lore, and session outlines live in Notion. Its organizational features help me keep track of everything without getting overwhelmed. I can easily link pages, set up databases for NPCs, and copy in my session notes from GM Assistant.

                                                                My Dual-Monitor Command Center

                                                                Having all the information available at a quick glance is really important so that I don't disrupt the flow of the game looking for something. That being said, I'm still super chaotic.

                                                                • Monitor One: This is the monitor that has my webcam on top of it, so I put all the things I'll be staring at here with the video of my players faces up top near the webcam (to make it closer to eye contact), below that is the VTT and sometimes a page of notes if i'm reading off of it (I'll throw these notes on the other screen if they aren't immediately relevant).
                                                                • Monitor Two: This is my control panel. I have Notion open with all my notes and session prep. In my browser, I keep tabs for the 5e.tools DM Screen, ChatGPT, and Kobold Fight Club Plus. This setup allows me to quickly access any information I need without interrupting the flow of the game.
                                                                • On Physical Desk: I keep a set of polyhedral dice because sometimes I don't want to fiddle in the VTT. I also keep a notepad and pencil incase I want to note something down.

                                                                Immediate Pre-Session Prep

                                                                Even with a low-prep approach, a bit of immediate preparation goes a long way. Here's what I focus on right before a session:

                                                                1. Anticipating Player Choices: I spend some time thinking about the likely paths my players might take. While they often surprise me, having a general idea helps me stay one step ahead and keeps the story cohesive. I will literally make a list of things they will probably do.
                                                                   1. Example likely path:
                                                                      1. Attempt a short rest after fight
                                                                      2. Enter the boss room and fight the boss
                                                                      3. Head down the mountain and camp
                                                                      4. Run into goblin bounty hunters
                                                                      5. Journey back to town
                                                                      6. Curating Loot, Encounters, and NPCs: I prepare a shortlist of potential loot items, balanced encounters, and NPCs with distinct personalities and motivations. This ensures I have level appropriate things ready, I make sure I have everything for the "likely path" as well as some things for "likely unlikely paths" since players love to Zig when I prepared to Zag.
                                                                      7. Setting Up My Workspace: I make sure all my tools are up and running—FoundryVTT is loaded with the necessary maps and tokens, my notes are organized in Notion, and all relevant browser tabs are open. A smooth start sets the tone for the entire session.

                                                                      Maintaining a High Standard of Play

                                                                      By combining these tools and strategies, I can focus on what really matters: facilitating an enjoyable experience for my players. The technology handles the grunt work, allowing me to be more present in the moment and responsive to my players' actions.

                                                                      Final Thoughts

                                                                      Being a Dungeon Master doesn't have to consume all your free time. With the right tools and a streamlined workflow, it's possible to run high-quality sessions with minimal prep. That doesn't mean I don't do more prep when I feel like it, such as building out my world and potential plot threads, but it does mean there's less to do if I'm not feeling it that day.

                                                                      If you wanna chat about my DMing style or have some suggestions, join us in Discord!]]> Fri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Articles https://gmassistant.app/blog/introducing-automated-notes-for-dnd https://gmassistant.app/blog/introducing-automated-notes-for-dnd Back in August 2023, I quit my full-time job as a software engineer and decided to start a business. A tool to remove the burden of prep for Game Masters.
                                                                      
                                                                      

                                                                      Are you a game master who dreads the tedious task of taking session notes? Introducing GM Assistant, a web app designed to transform your audio recordings into organized, accurate notes effortlessly. I'm Alex, a software engineer and fellow game master, and I'd like to share the story of how this tool came to life.

                                                                      Back in August 2023, I quit my full-time job as a software engineer, partly due to a company reorg I was not happy with and partly due to burnout. After that, I went deep into being a house-husband, gardener, and gamer.

                                                                      Once I got antsy and concerned about what I was gonna do with my life, I looked into a ton of business ideas from freeze-drying candy, 3d printer farm, and even power-washing. Those numbers were really depressing coming from a software engineering income and frankly would be harder jobs.

                                                                      Once I got my head straight, I remembered I actually enjoy writing code and solving really hard problems. I also had everyone telling me I was a good engineer. So I applied to Recurse Center in NYC at the behest of a friend of mine. It's basically a 6-12 week retreat for programmers where you can work on anything you want with the support of a community.

                                                                      Going there relit some serious fires I had deep down. I had no idea what I was going to work on when I got there but my "batch" of 40 or so super passionate and some super ambitious programmers had their ideas. A group of us ended up attending/forming an insane bootcamp with some ML/AI experts who were there.

                                                                      The next two weeks were a roller coaster, we learned all about modern AI, LLMs, Diffusion Models, etc. We wrote our own code from scratch to create neural networks, we trained our own models with public data sets, we even got into mechanistic interpretability to try to *dissect* how these neural nets worked.

                                                                      Coming out of those grueling two weeks, I still had 4 weeks to go in the Recurse Center. Every day I was listening to the latest AI news, being filled with dread and anxiety about the future. Not because I think AI is going to go skynet on us, but because it was impossible to understand what my career would look like going forward. AI was writing code for people. "Devon" was announced about this time which could write programs without hand-holding (turns out it was a lot of hype IMO).

                                                                      The idea

                                                                      In my remaining time at the retreat, I needed to work on something that I could point to and say "I made that". While burned out as a Dungeon Master at the time, I was also concerned I didn't want to do that anymore. So with AI simmering in my brain next to DMing, I had some ideas start forming.

                                                                      The obvious things are character art generators, name generators, story generators, blah blah generators. I mean "generative" AI, it's in the name. I did actually write and train a name generator but it didn't take more than a day. I did it in a way where it made totally unique names that *sounded* like names and that was cool and different but still small potatoes. Here's a screenshot:

                                                                      Learning AI at the lowest possible levels really gave me an understanding of what it can and can't do, and more importantly what it would be good at and what it wouldn't be. Then I had a random idea, what if I could remove the part of game mastering that I hate the most and am terrible at, taking session notes.

                                                                      The Webapp

                                                                      In my remaining weeks at the Recurse Center, I cranked out a very ugly proof-of-concept for GM Assistant.

                                                                      Even though that was only about 7 months ago, transcription tools were way more expensive and AI models weren't nearly as good. I tried all sorts of things like GPT-3.5, Anthropic's models, AWS transcriptions, etc. The results were pretty good, but I did get a lot of hallucinations where all of a sudden my players were in some town that didn't exist in my world or the brief mention of South Park made "Mr. Mackey" an NPC. Even still, I was excited because it saved me a lot of time as a DM even if I had to heavily tweak the output by hand. That's how I knew I was solving a real problem that at least some other game masters must also face.

                                                                      My gaming PC in my home office gave me access to a GPU I could use to develop my own "stack" without spending money. Some frustrating work with very nascent libraries and tools made it so I could finally get really, really good results in a reasonable amount of time for cheap enough I could turn it into a business.

                                                                      Now we have users (!!!) and our tech stack is becoming pretty fancy and robust. Although in the near-term we are focused on our core feature of Audio → Notes, we have so many other ideas. I am super excited about what's to come.

                                                                      Check out our plans here: Roadmap

                                                                      Any new features we add will adhere to our AI Philosophy

                                                                      I invite you to try out gmassistant.app, provide feedback, or share this post with others who might benefit.]]> Sat, 02 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT alex@gmassistant.app (Alex) Articles