A chatbot or Roll Hollow?

Who decides what happens

• In a chatbot: one long chat narrates, decides outcomes, and often says what your character does.
• In Roll Hollow: you write what your character does. When you want to know something, ask the oracle and your dice roll decides.

What it remembers

• In a chatbot: it's all one transcript, and early details fade or get contradicted.
• In Roll Hollow: people, places, threads and gear are cards you own and edit. Scenes get short summaries in your words, and you can export the whole log as Markdown or plain text anytime.

What it costs

• In a chatbot: every reply calls the model, needed or not.
• In Roll Hollow: the oracle, journal, prompts, cards and export never use AI. Add your own Anthropic key if you'd like help, and it writes only when you press its button.

What Roll Hollow doesn't do

It doesn't run the table or move your character. It has no rules system, character sheet, map or combat tracker. It is a place to play and keep a solo campaign, in whatever game you like.

One test we ran

Same model, same campaign, twice: once as a plain chatbot with the campaign pasted in, once through Roll Hollow's optional AI. On that one scene:

• The chatbot's replies ran to a median of 294 words; Roll Hollow's to 83.
• The chatbot spoke or acted for the player's character in 36 of 58 replies; Roll Hollow in 4 of 57.
• The chatbot ended by asking "What do you do?" in 12 of 58 replies; Roll Hollow in none.

Take these with care: one scene, one sample campaign, and Roll Hollow's side measured on an earlier version of its prompt. The count of replies that spoke for the player's character came from an automated check that agreed with our own labels about 85 percent of the time. And some players prefer the longer, freer style.