Recap Raven and Archivist AI: which fits your campaign?

Archivist describes a compendium, timeline, campaign questions and quest updates you can review before accepting. It also offers private journals, public campaign sharing and integrations with Discord and Foundry.

Recap Raven keeps a chronicle of your campaign’s events alongside session recaps and private GM review. Eligible Memory sessions add cited answers, automatic quest updates and links back to the recorded events.

Both tools let you showcase your campaign to the world. Recap Raven’s free, opt-in Campaign Showcase shares your campaign’s player-safe story while keeping GM notes private.

Our guide to campaign memory shows the kind of questions you can ask Recap Raven. Start with a question you have already had to hunt through your notes to answer.

Both Recap Raven and Archivist AI offer Foundry VTT and Obsidian plugins, alongside their Discord integrations. If your group already uses those tools, either product can fit into that setup; compare what each plugin lets you do with your campaign.

Both also give your campaign history a home. Recap Raven has Campaign World, a campaign chronicle and private GM lore; Archivist AI has its compendium, timeline and private journals.

Archivist AI puts review and approval into its session workflow. You can check generated records and review proposed quest updates before accepting them. Recap Raven also lets you review recaps before your table sees them: turn off automatic Discord publishing in your campaign settings, then review and edit each recap before sharing it.

Recap Raven is built for GMs who want that time back. It prepares the recap and delivers it to Discord, with private GM material kept separate. Eligible Memory sessions also maintain Campaign World, quest progress and hooks automatically, so there is less to update between games. You can still review and edit your recaps and campaign records, and manually approve what you choose to publish in the public Showcase.

If you need a tool for a weekly campaign, compare what remains available after the first month. Include how many campaigns you run and whether you need recording or only a place for existing notes.

On Searchable Memory plans, Recap Raven answers campaign questions with transcript quotes and links back to the recorded evidence. You can check what was said, and Recap Raven says when the saved record does not support an answer. Our guide to checking campaign answers shows how this works.

Archivist AI also supports citations. Its Ask API documentation shows answers with a source, session number and excerpt; the published example cites a timeline event. Much like Recap Raven, its Ask feature draws on saved campaign records. Archivist AI’s documentation lists transcripts, summaries, entities and other campaign material among those sources.

We have not verified whether Archivist AI’s website and Discord answers link directly to exact transcript passages. Cited answers are a feature of both products; Recap Raven’s transcript quotes and evidence links are a workflow you can see in our product examples.

Archivist AI lists Data Studio and Cast Analysis, including conversation and pacing views. Recap Raven brings participation, scene energy and character spotlights together with your private GM review.

Recap Raven includes words by speaker on every plan. Premium and Memory sessions add deeper analysis, including scene energy that helps you follow the pacing of the evening. You can see where the session became tense, playful or quieter, then revisit what was happening at the table. These extras are also included in the Premium + Memory welcome sessions available to new free accounts.

Recap Raven’s Pillars of Play charts show the percentage split between combat, exploration and social interaction, both for a session and across eligible campaign sessions. That helps you compare the campaign you planned with the game your table is playing. Our pillars of play guide shows a real campaign example. The charts are included with Premium and Memory sessions, rather than ordinary Free/Standard recaps.

Archivist AI documents combat, social and exploration encounters in its handouts, alongside broader pacing and participation analysis. We could not verify a three-pillar percentage breakdown like Recap Raven provides in Archivist AI’s published documentation.

Character spotlights and memorable moments from Recap Raven add context to the speaking figures. A player might speak less but make the decision everyone remembers. Together, these views help you plan who to bring into the next scene and which parts of the game your group responded to.

See Recap Raven’s session analytics for examples of the charts and private GM views, or read how I used the DM talk-time figures from Recap Raven at my own table.

Both products support reviewing your campaign before publishing it publicly. Check what a reader can see, including recaps, campaign entries and any attached material, and ask the group before making its story public.

Recap Raven’s free Showcase is opt-in and keeps GM-only material separate. The campaign-sharing guide includes a real public campaign you can browse before setting up your own.

If your group plays around a physical table and wants recaps from its recordings, Archivist AI has the more suitable capture options. Record on a phone or microphone and upload the audio, either as one mixed recording or separate speaker tracks. You do not need to move the game into Discord to capture it.

Archivist AI also offers recording in its iOS and Android mobile app, currently described as an open beta. That gives an in-person group a way to record at the table and submit the session from the same device. Groups that alternate between Discord and in-person games can keep both kinds of session in one campaign.

Recap Raven’s recording workflow centres on Discord and Craig imports. You can bring existing transcripts and written notes into Recap Raven, but that does not replace a phone-recording upload workflow. For a group whose main requirement is recording everyone around one table, we would point them towards Archivist AI.

Both products offer campaign questions, analytics, public sharing, and plugins for Foundry VTT and Obsidian. Recap Raven offers automatic campaign upkeep and a choice of automatic recap delivery or review before sharing. Archivist AI combines its review workflow with audio uploads and a mobile recording app beta for in-person tables.