Old Greg's Tavern

Old Greg’s Tavern is a text-based AI RPG built around a simple pitch: a dungeon master who is always awake and never polite about it. You create a character — custom appearance, class, backstory, stats — walk into the tavern, and the campaign runs whenever you do: web, iOS, or Android, pick up mid-sentence and put it down hours later. The site claims over 285,000 players, and by mid-2026 it has been one of the fastest-growing names in the AI DM space.

How It Works

Structurally, Old Greg’s Tavern sits in the same territory as Friends & Fables: persistent, long-session campaign play with real character sheets, aimed at people who want a continuing world rather than one-off story fragments. Sessions run on a credit system — one story of up to 50 rounds costs 5 credits — and the standout multiplayer hook is that invited friends (up to five) play completely free; only the host spends credits.

Where it splits from Friends & Fables is temperament. This platform actively tries to be edgy, and it succeeds — there is a genuine edge to the DM voice and the world’s attitude that its competitors simply lack. Grit, bite, and irreverence are the house style, not an accident of the model.

Advantages Over Competitors

The edginess is the real differentiator. Most AI DM platforms sand their tone down to a friendly neutral; Old Greg’s commits to a voice, and long-session players who find the competition bland will feel the difference immediately. On the spectrum that matters in this category, it is less a game than Friends & Fables but more a game than AI Dungeon — enough structure to feel like a campaign, enough looseness to stay fast.

The friends-play-free model is also quietly one of the best group-play deals in the directory: one subscriber can host a whole table.

What It Does Best (and Worst)

Best for long-session, personality-forward campaign play — solo or with friends — where tone matters as much as mechanics. If Friends & Fables ever felt too well-behaved for your table, this is the correction.

Worst for players who want mechanical rigor. It has less of it than Friends & Fables — fewer hard rules, less systematic depth — and the experience is a bit clunkier overall. Solid, but you will notice the rough edges in the interface and the occasional seams in long sessions.

Re-Tested in October 2026

We went back in October 2026 and ran one campaign for more than fifty rounds: a tiefling sneakthief who blackmails his way into the deed to a frozen keep, then has three days to hold it against a neighbour with forty swords. Two axes moved in opposite directions, and the composite stayed where it was.

Mechanical Depth — 3, up from 2. There is a game under the story now. The character sheet tracks hit points, mana, level and skills. Inventory items carry a value in crowns — the deed to the keep is listed at 2,350. A check names its skill and shows the modifier and the target before you roll (“Investigation +1 · DC 10”), then puts a twenty-sided die on screen for you to throw. Mana is spent and comes back: one spell took ours from 10 to 8, and a rest restored it.

Determinism & Fairness — 2, down from 3. The dice are honest. A natural 20 carried an outrageous bluff, and a natural 1 got us thrown out of an imperial office with nothing. The ledger is not. The narration counted our gold coin by coin, the character sheet showed 0 when we opened it, and when we handed a rival lord fifty crowns we did not have, the game accepted the gift. Three Investigation checks in very different situations all carried the same target of 10, and the experience bar did not move in thirty rounds that included both of those rolls.

The full review has the rest of what we saw.

Limitations

The credit economy means solo play is effectively pay-to-host: there is no meaningful free solo tier, so budget for a subscription if you intend to play regularly rather than join friends’ games. And although the systems are real now, they do not check each other yet — this is not the platform for players who want the system itself to push back hard.

Pricing

Plan	Cost	Limits & Features
Adventurer	$5 one-time	5 credits · 50 rounds
Hero	$15/month	20 credits · 200 rounds/month
Legend	$25/month	45 credits · 450 rounds/month + discounted credit top-ups

Invited friends (up to 5) play free on the host’s credits. Referral program available.

Verdict

Old Greg’s Tavern targets the same long-session market as Friends & Fables and carves out its own seat at the table through sheer personality. A bit clunkier, less mechanically rigorous — but the edge is real, the persistence works, and the friends-play-free model makes it an easy group pick. The mechanics have grown since we first scored it, and the bookkeeping behind them has not caught up. 3.0 out of 5.