AI Tools for GMs | How Archivist is Changing the Game One Session at a Time

Ask any Game Master what breaks immersion at the table, and you’ll get familiar answers: scattered notes, forgotten NPC names, and lost plot threads from six sessions ago. That’s exactly what inspired Archivist, an AI-powered campaign tracking tool built by GMs, for the full party.

I had the chance to interview Greg Wood, one of the co-founders of Archivist, to learn how the app came to life, how it fits into their own games, and what it means for the future of tabletop storytelling. Here’s what he had to say.

Q&A with Greg Wood, Co-Founder of Archivist

Where are you based out of? What do you do for your day job?

We’re Greg Harezlak and Greg Wood—still working on how to make that less confusing. It’s become a running joke in our Discord server. Harezlak is based just outside of Phoenix, Arizona, while I live on the Central Coast of California. We both come from long careers in tech. Harezlak has held a wide range of technical roles in Silicon Valley and beyond, spanning everything from HR systems to venture capital platforms. My background is in corporate finance and strategy, with experience across retail, hardware, and internet services.

Archivist is now our full-time focus. While we’re regularly clocking long hours, it doesn’t feel like work because we’re solving problems we’ve faced at our own game table. That’s the fun part: we’re users first. Building something that improves our own sessions and seeing it resonate with others has been incredibly fulfilling.

What is the story behind your app? How did it come about? What inspired you?

Archivist was born at our own table. Like most long-running campaigns, we accumulated lore, callbacks, dozens of NPCs, and a growing stack of homebrew rules. And like most tables, we struggled to keep track of it all.

I ended up as one of the group’s designated notetakers. One campaign eventually amassed a 70+ page shared Google Doc, which may sound impressive but became a chore to manage both during and between sessions. At best, it was tedious. At worst, it pulled me out of the moment or caused us to miss important details entirely.

That’s when Harezlak saw the opportunity. He built a prototype Discord bot that joined our sessions, transcribed the audio, and started automating the whole documentation process. Suddenly, I could stay immersed in the game, and the entire party benefited from detailed, accurate recaps—not vague memories or scattered bullet points.

That early version was simple, but the relief was instant. We knew we were onto something. Since then, Archivist has grown into a full platform designed for any GM or player who wants to spend less time tracking details and more time telling unforgettable stories.

Archivist’s Discord Bot joins your server to transcribe sessions in real time and includes a campaign chatbot for instant answers about your world.

How active are you playing TTRPG games? Do you GM or play characters or both?

Still going strong. We met through a D&D group that kicked off in late 2019, and we’ve been playing together ever since—through moves, new babies, and the general chaos of life. Our group still meets bi-weekly, and we’ve all taken turns behind the screen.

Our current campaign is set 200 years after the last one, with a new party navigating the long-term consequences of the old party’s decisions. We love that dynamic—deep continuity with plenty of room for fresh arcs and surprises. That long‑running continuity, combined with feedback from Archivist users, inspired us to add a History & Lore feature—letting world history be recorded as part of the campaign and made instantly accessible through the chatbot.

Greg H. shines in roleplay-heavy sessions, character voices, and improvising lore on the fly to keep the world reactive and alive. I’m more mechanically focused—whether I’m playing or GMing, it’s full of min-max characters and mechanic-heavy encounters.

Where do you want to be in 2 years?

We want Archivist to be the go-to tool for GMs and players who want to save time on prep, deepen their group’s immersion, and maintain continuity and clarity across their campaigns. Our goal isn’t to replace creativity—it’s to preserve it. That means expanding our features while staying laser-focused on helping people run better, smoother games without added overhead.

We’re committed to eliminating the burden of notetaking while building frictionless tools that unlock new possibilities—whether that’s viewing a session outline at multiple levels of detail, instantly jumping to an NPC’s dialogue from ten sessions ago, or pulling up campaign-spanning summaries in seconds.

The roadmap is evolving, and our users have already pushed us in some incredible directions. One recent addition is our 2‑Page Session Handouts, that are formatted and ready to share with your whole group, packed with useful information.

Session Handouts are generated in a single click, including: recap, outline, encounter, character highlights, items, information, and more

Beyond just features, we want to keep building a thoughtful, creative community of GMs and players—people who share feedback, exchange ideas, and help shape what Archivist becomes next.

What is one question I should have asked but didn’t?

How do you see AI changing TTRPGs?

AI is a hot topic, especially in the TTRPG community, and for good reason. We believe AI has the potential to meaningfully improve how games are run, but only if it stays within the boundaries of human creativity. We’re not interested in automated storytelling, AI-generated GMs, or letting computers dictate outcomes.

Archivist uses AI for what it does best: organizing, recalling, and documenting the tedious stuff that breaks immersion and slows down the game. Our goal is to help GMs and players stay in the moment and focus on the fun—not stress over whether they wrote down the name of that shady fence from session six.

We also believe users should have full control over their data. Archivist doesn’t use gameplay data to train models, and we never sell or share user information. Everything we generate is derived through structured prompt engineering and belongs to the table that created it.

Our goal is simple: reduce the logistical overhead of running a campaign so your creativity and storytelling can take center stage.

Archivist in Action

In addition to the Discord bot for live session recording, the campaign‑aware chatbot for your story, and the 2‑Page Session Handouts mentioned above, Archivist also offers a suite of tools to keep your game organized and immersive:

• Audio Upload, Raw Notes ingestion, Play-by-Post (in addition to the Discord Live Recording)

• Chatbot that knows your campaign history (also available within your Discord Server)

• Session Handouts (1-clidk, 2 page PDF ready to consume)

• Campaign Wide tracking, not just piecemeal individual sessions

  • Recaps

  • Timeline (more on this below) 

  • Character, Faction, Location tracking and progression

  • Story Highlights

Archivist’s Campaign Timeline turns sessions into structured story arcs, capturing every major beat and quirky character moment without breaking immersion.

The screenshot above highlights how Archivist organizes a session from Guildenpire, showing the flow of a D&D school exhibition arc. Color-coded categories like “Major,” “Minor,” and “Step” make it easy to parse the story’s beats. On the right, a structured Session Summary recounts player actions and party dynamics with clarity that would take hours to write by hand.

Final Thoughts

Archivist isn’t just another app. It’s built from the ground up by people who love playing and running games, designed to capture every moment and keep your adventures connected. With AI handling the tedious parts, everyone at the table can stay immersed in the story and focus on the moments you’ll be talking about for years.