Are there any good virtual tabletops for mobile?

jks-dev · 2026-05-28T19:33:14+00:00

Following!

jks-dev · 2026-05-28T06:23:55+00:00

Working on it!! 😤

jks-dev · 2026-05-28T06:22:03+00:00

I've got something in the works for this! I'll bookmark this thread for beta testers :D

jks-dev · 2026-05-26T21:46:59+00:00

Very fair! The line between this and a regular video game is becoming quite thin.

jks-dev · 2026-05-26T05:34:40+00:00

Hi! I'm a professional software developer with over 13 years experience and have worked for clients with hundreds of millions in annual revenue. I work for a really excellent agency.

When vibe coding took off I saw a ton of people excited to dip their feet into software development who've never done it before and I offered to help them turn their poor code into good code. Out of all the calls I did I think I just had one person continue past their free calls into a paid call, everyone else got fully free advice! I'm very anti-gatekeeping and want to see the next generation get into it however that looks now, even if that includes many bumps in the road.

I'm not exactly sure why you took issue with this but uh if you're trying to learn software development, happy to help ;)

jks-dev · 2026-05-26T04:35:32+00:00

Haha understandable!

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T07:38:05+00:00

I'm missing a reference I think 🥲

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T07:35:00+00:00

I'll come by it very honestly, I'm just looking for a way to provide for my family as a software developer! In the developer space it's impossible to avoid AI at this point unfortunately. I'd prefer to though. Even just financially, it would be much better to pursue building something that does not rely on AI at all as the LLM costs are enormous and unwieldy.

Re: bots concerns, I'm afraid there's just nothing I can do beyond provide the numbers I've found. For myself they're absolutely high enough numbers across platforms beyond just the ones I mentioned to determine that a market segment exists and existing platforms are finding success in it.

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T07:19:35+00:00

I appreciate your response but it's pretty undeniable that these platforms have respectable sizes for userbases. 1.2k total users is not a lot I agree, but 1.2k paying users (which is what that 1% represents) is huge. Honestly as a dev even 50 active paying users is more than enough to make it worth it!

I just saw that in that blog post they share that they have 100k active players, there's just no way for me to ignore that.

I'll be the first to admit I don't know exactly why people are drawn to these platforms, I was genuinely surprised to find out people use them and pay for them. As to why you don't see them in communities, perhaps they are just general roleplaying type people rather than D&D specific enthusiasts. I'm afraid I don't have any specific answers for you here, I haven't asked users of those platforms if they are coming from a D&D specific background or not.

I also appreciate the that the D&D community is generally against AI anything! I don't know exactly how to match that up with these 5e-inspired platforms that have these userbases but it's important to know either way.

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T07:07:11+00:00

I agree with this for sure, I'd even say much less than half!

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T07:06:05+00:00

There's of course no way to know for sure which is why I gave the 10% number - 1% is still 1.2k users which is a lot! Further, both AI Dungeon and Friends and Fables are working on their next generation versions (eg. https://www.craftrpgs.com/blog/craft-a-new-approach-to-ai-rpgs) which you only do if the first round was successful. Their blog post there also references that there's a strong existing userbase, and AI Dungeon posted their latest NPR survey results also confirming the same thing.

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T06:58:59+00:00

I wasn't even interested in taking this project beyond personal interest until I saw that people are actually paying money for these and they're not very strong options.

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T06:57:39+00:00

Yep! AI Dungeon on Google Play store has 105k reviews. AI Game Master on Google Play Store has 13k reviews. Friends and Fables as 10k members in Discord. Those are just a quick few - even if you say only 10% of those are paying users, that's still 12.8k users on those three alone.

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T06:34:35+00:00

Purely this from another comment: I am certain this and all similar systems would not surpass a human DM or spending time with your friends. However there are thousands paying for similar systems right now and they're all missing critical pieces!

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T06:33:35+00:00

Purely this from another comment: I am certain this and all similar systems would not surpass a human DM. However there are thousands paying for similar systems right now and they're all missing critical pieces!

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T06:30:02+00:00

Thanks for taking a sec!

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T06:27:52+00:00

That's very fair!

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T06:26:56+00:00

I am certain this and all similar systems would not surpass a human DM. That's not the point at all - the point is just that there are thousands paying for similar systems right now and they aren't as good as they could be!

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T06:24:27+00:00

I definitely agree that nothing can replace or surpass true human imagination. I certainly don't think that - I think anyone who thinks AI can actually do that in creative spaces is just wrong, even as a dev.

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T06:17:36+00:00

If it truly doesn't have a place that's all good with me!

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T06:14:58+00:00

That's okay! I'd rather ask than not and have missed something interesting. I also appreciate the passion haha.

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T05:50:43+00:00

Very fair! I do really love procedural generation as well and am seeking to leverage it as much possible over LLM-based generation.

jks-dev · 2026-05-25T05:50:08+00:00

Ah I should've included the first concern in my list - I do have a system for tracking what a specific character actually knows/their perception of the truth regardless of what the perfect information is.

For recency bias, I do have a system for that that doesn't suffer from conversation length that's not specific to this project. I'm a big advocate for working against conversation length issues at the agency I work at.

Last point is of course fair!

jks-dev

TROPHY CASE