Your assistant stops guessing. It has the campaign open.
A TTRPG MCP Server for Your Own AI Assistant
Asking an AI for help with a long campaign usually means paying a tax first. You paste in the last four recaps, the list of people who matter, the thing the duchess said in spring, and only then can you ask the actual question. The answer is only as good as the pile you assembled, and tomorrow you assemble it again.
Realms of Shod runs an MCP server, so the assistant you already use reaches into the realm itself. Twenty-eight tools cover realms, sessions, full transcripts, the compendium, relationships, notes, and quests, with reads and writes held to the same role permissions a person gets. Connect once, and the campaign is simply there, the way a codebase is there in an editor.
The Quick Answer
| Detail | The answer |
|---|---|
| Server address | https://mcp.realmsofshod.com/mcp |
| Transport | Streamable HTTP, no local install |
| Sign-in | OAuth in a browser window, once |
| Clients with setup docs | Claude Code, Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor, Copilot |
| Tools | 28, across six groups |
| Permissions | Your realm role, enforced per tool call |
| Price | Included, no separate charge |
There is nothing to download and no key to paste. The server is hosted, and the client you already run does the talking.
What MCP Actually Is
The Model Context Protocol is a standard way for an AI assistant to use an outside service. A server publishes a list of things it can do, each one named and described, and the assistant calls them when a request needs them. It is the same idea as a plug socket: the protocol settles the shape of the connection so neither side has to know anything special about the other.
What matters for a campaign is the direction of travel. Without it, you are the transport layer, ferrying context in by hand and answers back out. With it, the assistant fetches what a question needs by itself, including the parts you would not have thought to include, and hands back work that lands in the realm rather than in a chat log you will lose by Tuesday.
The 28 Tools
You never call these yourself. The assistant picks them when a request needs them, the way it decides to open a file. The list is worth reading anyway, because it is the honest boundary of what a connected assistant can see and change.
| Group | Reaches | Tools |
|---|---|---|
| Realms | The realms you belong to, their members and settings | List, get, create, rename |
| Sessions | Sessions, scenes, summaries, and full spoken transcripts | List, get, get transcript |
| Entities | Compendium entries, their variants, images, and your notes | List, get, create, edit, edit notes, merge, upload image, delete |
| Relationships | The typed connections between two entries | List, create, delete |
| Notes | Named compendium documents and their access lists | List, get, create, edit, delete |
| Quests | Hooks, goals, rewards, linked entities, step timelines | List, get, save, delete, step |
Listing tools page through their results with a cursor, so a realm with nine hundred entries does not have to arrive in one piece. Quests are the one group with a rule worth knowing up front: a quest's status comes from its step timeline rather than being set directly, so an assistant finishes one by adding a completed step, not by flipping a field.
Things Worth Asking It
The useful requests are the ones that would take you an hour of reading to answer yourself. Not “invent a tavern”, which any chat window does. Something that depends on what your table actually did.
Prep for the next session
- “Read the last two sessions and tell me which promises the party made and has not kept.”
- “Who in the compendium has a reason to be waiting at the harbour when they arrive?”
- “List every entry the party has met but never asked a single question about.”
Audit the world
- “Walk the relationships around the merchant house and tell me where the graph says something the table does not know yet.”
- “Find people with no connections at all, so I can see who I introduced and then dropped.”
- “Two entries look like the same person under different names. Check, and merge them if you agree.”
Write something back
- “Draft a quest from the thread about the flooded mine, with a hook, a goal, and a reward that fits what this party wants.”
- “Write a note for the smuggler captain covering what she knows, shared with nobody but me.”
The last group is the one that changes your week. An assistant that can only talk gives you a paragraph to copy somewhere. An assistant holding these tools files the quest, writes the note, and sets its access, and the work is in the realm when you next open it.
What It Is Allowed to Do
Connecting an assistant does not create a second, more powerful you. It signs in as you, through an ordinary OAuth prompt in a browser, and then every call it makes is checked the same way a click in the app would be.
- It inherits your role. A Collaborator can create and edit content, an Admin can also rename the realm, and a member with read-only access stays read-only through MCP as well.
- It sees what you see. Entries and relationships you have not been granted access to are not returned, because access is held per item rather than per role.
- Private notes stay private. A connected assistant can read and write your own notes on an entry. Nobody else’s notes are reachable, by you or by it.
- Someone else’s note is theirs. Editing a compendium note is restricted to whoever wrote it, with no override, and deleting one needs to be that person, an Admin, or the Owner.
- Deletions are real deletions. Removing an entity, relationship, quest, or note cannot be undone, and merging permanently absorbs the records that lose.
Worth saying plainly: the write tools are real. An assistant with the Collaborator role can delete an entry as easily as it can create one, and it will do what you ask. If you want an assistant that only reads, connect it from an account whose role is read-only, and keep the writing seat for yourself. The permissions reference lists exactly what each role can touch.
Connecting a Client
Three steps, and the middle one is a browser window.
- 1Point the client at the server
Add https://mcp.realmsofshod.com/mcp as an HTTP MCP server. In Claude Code that is one terminal command; in the desktop clients it is a few lines of JSON.
- 2Sign in once
The first request opens a browser window and asks you to sign in to Realms of Shod and authorize the connection. After that the client handles it.
- 3Ask about your realm
No further setup. Ask a question that needs the campaign and the assistant will reach for the tools it needs on its own.
The MCP documentation carries the exact command or config block for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor, and Copilot, along with every tool written out in full. Anything else that speaks MCP over HTTP will work too; those six are just the ones with steps written down.
Against Pasting Into a Chat Window
Pasting works, and for a one-off question it is faster than setting anything up. It stops working somewhere around session twenty, for a reason that is not really about size.
| Pasting context in | Connected over MCP |
|---|---|
| You choose what context to include | It fetches what the question needs |
| Long campaigns stop fitting in the window | It reads the parts it wants, page by page |
| Answers land in a chat log | Quests, notes, and entries land in the realm |
| Nothing checks what you paste | Every call is checked against your role |
| Secrets leak by accident, in the paste | Items you lack access to are never returned |
| You redo it every session | Connect once |
When you assemble the context yourself, you decide in advance what is relevant, which means the assistant can only ever confirm what you already suspected. The interesting answers come from the material you would not have pasted, because you had forgotten it was there.
What It Does Not Do
The edges of the surface, stated plainly:
- It cannot run your game. There is no tool for sitting at the table. It reads and writes the record around the session.
- It cannot start or join a session. Recording, live voice, and video stay in the app.
- It cannot manage members or billing. No inviting, no role changes, no coins.
- It only reaches realms you are in. Sharing a realm with an assistant means adding the person whose account it signed in as.
And the question under all of this, which is whether you want an AI anywhere near the game in the first place. That is a table decision, not a technical one, and the guide on AI dungeon masters works through where the honest lines usually sit.
MCP Server FAQ
What is a TTRPG MCP server?
An MCP server exposes a campaign to AI assistants through the Model Context Protocol, so an assistant can read sessions, transcripts, and compendium entries and write new ones without you pasting anything in. Realms of Shod hosts one at https://mcp.realmsofshod.com/mcp.
How do I connect Claude to my TTRPG campaign?
Add the Realms of Shod MCP server to your client, then sign in through the browser window it opens on first use. In Claude Code it is a single terminal command; Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor, and Copilot take a short config block. The MCP documentation has the exact text for each.
What can a connected assistant do?
Twenty-eight tools across six groups: realms, sessions and transcripts, compendium entities, relationships, notes, and quests. It can list and read all of them, and create, edit, merge, or delete where your role allows it.
Can it see things my players cannot?
It sees exactly what the account it signed in as can see. Access in a realm is held per entry and per relationship, so anything you have not been granted is simply not returned to the assistant either.
Can it change or delete my campaign data?
Yes, if the account it signed in as has the Collaborator role or above. Deletions and merges are permanent. Connect a read-only account if you want an assistant that can only look.
Does it work with ChatGPT, or only Claude?
Any client that speaks MCP over HTTP works. Setup steps are documented for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor, and Copilot.
Does using MCP cost coins?
No. The MCP server is included with your account, and whatever you pay for your AI client is between you and that provider. Coins are for recording and processing sessions.
Do I need to install anything?
No. The server is hosted and speaks HTTP, so there is nothing to run locally and no API key to paste. Sign-in happens through a standard OAuth prompt in your browser.
Can an AI run the game through MCP?
No. There is no tool for playing. The server reaches the record around your sessions, not the sessions themselves, so live voice, video, and recording stay in the app.
Give the Assistant a Memory
Models are good at reasoning and bad at remembering, which is the exact opposite of what a fourteen-month campaign needs. Handing one a realm fixes the half it is bad at, and leaves the half it is good at pointed at a world that has actually happened.
Realms of Shod is free to start, and the MCP server comes with it. The campaign wiki is what the assistant reads from, and transcription is what fills it in the first place.