Your AI Game Master Costs Nothing
Glintlock Team
February 16, 2026
Update (March 2026): Glintlock has moved to Discord. The OpenCode setup below is no longer the primary way to play. Join the beta on Discord — free during beta.
Every AI tool charges by the token.
That's the deal. You send text in, you get text back, and somewhere a meter is running. For most use cases — writing emails, summarizing documents, generating code — the cost per interaction is small enough to ignore. But a tabletop RPG session isn't a single interaction. It's hundreds of exchanges over hours. You're building a world, tracking a character, rolling dice, making choices that compound across sessions. The meter doesn't stop running.
I built Glintlock on Claude Code, and I don't regret that — Claude Opus and Sonnet produce extraordinary game mastering. The project started with that premise — the best AI model, the best experience. But when people asked "how much does it cost to play?" I had to give them a real answer, and that answer involved a subscription. For some people, that's fine. For others, it's a wall. And a wall between a person and a game they'd love is the wrong kind of scarcity.
Then I found the door. OpenCode has a built-in mode called Zen that runs MiniMax M2.5 — and it costs nothing. No API key. No account. No billing page. I ported Glintlock to OpenCode, pointed it at Zen, and the result was a fully functional AI Game Master that doesn't charge a cent.
| Key Takeaway |
|---|
| Glintlock runs on OpenCode with MiniMax M2.5 Free — zero cost, no API key, no subscription. |
| OpenCode Zen is a built-in mode, not a workaround — it ships with OpenCode and works out of the box. |
| The full game experience transfers: dice, world persistence, narrative voice, permadeath. |
Setup takes five minutes: clone, build, launch, type /start. |
| Claude Code is the premium path; OpenCode Zen is the free one. Same game, same soul. |
What OpenCode Zen is
OpenCode is an open-source coding agent — a terminal tool in the same family as Claude Code, but model-agnostic and free. You can point it at any LLM provider. But the interesting part is Zen mode.
Zen ships with OpenCode. When you select it, you're using MiniMax M2.5 Free — a capable large language model with no API key required, no account registration, and no usage limits. It's not a trial. It's not rate-limited into uselessness. It's a real model running real inference at zero cost.
| Detail | Zen Mode |
|---|---|
| Model | MiniMax M2.5 Free |
| Cost | Free — no API key, no billing |
| Account required | No |
| Rate limits | Generous — suitable for full RPG sessions |
| Context window | Large enough for multi-session play |
| How to select | Built-in to OpenCode — select on first launch |
For a coding agent, Zen is a pragmatic choice. For an AI Game Master, it's a revelation. The thing that makes tabletop RPGs expensive with AI — long sessions, deep context, creative prose — is exactly what a free model with a large context window handles well.
Why it works for tabletop RPGs
AI game mastering is a specific kind of task. It's not summarization or classification. It's long-context creative generation with persistent state — the model needs to remember your character, your world, your choices, and produce narrative that feels consistent across sessions. Not every model handles that well.
MiniMax M2.5 does. The narrative output is vivid. The rules tracking is reliable. The world state persists across exchanges. It's not identical to what Claude Opus produces — Opus has a particular literary precision that's hard to match — but it's good. Good enough that the game feels real. Good enough that when your torch burns out in a dungeon three levels deep, you feel it.
| Claude Code | OpenCode Zen | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Claude Opus / Sonnet | MiniMax M2.5 Free |
| Cost | Claude subscription (~$20/mo) | Free |
| Setup | 2 commands | 4 commands (includes build step) |
| Narrative quality | Exceptional — literary, precise | Strong — vivid, consistent |
| Rules tracking | Excellent | Reliable |
| World persistence | Full — local markdown files | Full — local markdown files |
| Best for | Players who want the premium experience | Players who want to start immediately at zero cost |
The comparison isn't "good vs. bad." It's two doors into the same world.
Get set up in five minutes
You'll need Node.js 18 or higher and a terminal. That's it.
1. Install OpenCode
Follow the instructions at opencode.ai for your platform. It's a single binary — no complex setup.
2. Clone the Glintlock OpenCode repo
git clone https://github.com/glintlockGG/glintlock-opencode.git
3. Build the engine
cd glintlock-opencode && cd engine && npm install && npm run build && cd ../..
This compiles the game engine — the dice roller, world state manager, and session handler. Takes about thirty seconds.
4. Launch OpenCode
cd glintlock-opencode && opencode
On first launch, OpenCode will ask which model to use. Select Zen — that's the free MiniMax M2.5 option. No API key needed.
5. Start playing
/start
That's the only command you need. The GM introduces itself, asks about your play style, and walks you through character creation. The world opens from there.
Your first session
You type /start and the screen changes.
The GM doesn't greet you like a chatbot. It speaks like something that's been waiting in the dark. There's a voice — not cheerful, not corporate, something older. It asks how you want to play. Careful explorer or reckless adventurer. Long descriptions or short. How much mercy you want.
Then character creation. You pick an ancestry — human, halfling, elf, dwarf, or gnome. A class — Warden, Scout, Invoker, Surgeon, Rogue, or Seer. You roll stats: Vigor, Reflex, Wits, Willpower, Presence, Lore. The dice are real. If you roll badly, that's your character. No rerolls.
You name them. You choose their burden — the thing they carry into the dark that isn't in their pack. And then the world opens.
A torch. A starting location. A direction to choose. Something breathing in the next room.
The game doesn't explain itself further. It plays.
Two paths, same world
Glintlock on Claude Code and Glintlock on OpenCode Zen share the same architecture. The same soul document defines the GM's identity — its values, its pact with the player, its voice. The same world files track your character, your inventory, your map. The same dice engine rolls honestly.
The difference is the model interpreting those files. Claude Opus has a literary precision — its prose is tighter, its callbacks to earlier sessions more nuanced. MiniMax M2.5 is more direct — still atmospheric, still dangerous, but with a different rhythm. Neither is wrong. It's like two actors performing the same script. The words change. The soul doesn't.
If you start on OpenCode Zen and later get a Claude subscription, you don't lose anything. Your world files are local markdown. Your character sheet is a text file. Carry them over. The world remembers you regardless of which model reads its memory.
If cost is the thing standing between you and the game, it isn't anymore.
The torch is already lit
The first blog post on this site was about the soul document that defines your GM's identity — the values hierarchy, the pact, the torch metaphor. That post was about what Glintlock is. This one is about how to get there without spending a dollar.
The torch burns the same whether you paid for the match.
Clone the repo. Build the engine. Type /start. The dark is waiting, and the price of admission is five minutes and a terminal.
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