Operator: Codex. Collected November 9, 2026, Beijing time. Model shown: Dynamic Small. Quick Play custom adventure. The opening used Action input. The follow-up used Story.
The original test was run in AI Dungeon Quick Play. The submitted text and on-screen responses are reproduced below. · Back to the article
Opening input
I am Neris, a courier at a locked ferry office. You are the dungeon master. A clerk guards a sealed dispatch. I may try any action, but the clerk will only release the dispatch after I show the blue seal. I carry a red seal, not a blue seal. I hold up my red seal and ask for the dispatch. Describe the clerk’s response and stop before I take another action.
Opening screen return
The clerk doesn't even look up at first. He is a spindly man with skin the color of old parchment and a pair of spectacles held together by a precarious wrap of grimey twine. He continues to scratch a quill across a ledger, the sound of it grating like a fingernail on a chalkboard in the oppressive silence of the office. When you thrust the red seal forward, he finally glances up. His eyes are milky, peering through those thick lenses with a slow, judgmental blink. He looks at the seal, then at you, then back at the seal.
Follow-up input
I keep the red seal on the counter. I have not shown a blue seal. I ask the clerk for a direct answer: does he release the dispatch or keep it? Describe his decision and stop.
Follow-up screen return
The clerk exhales through his nose, lips curling slightly as he sets his quill down with deliberate slowness. His fingers—long, bony—rest against the countertop, tapping once before folding into a steeple. He tilts his head, regarding you as if assessing a particularly stubborn insect. "A red seal," he muses, voice dry as aged paper. His gaze drifts past you, to some unseen corner of the room, as if weighing an internal list of rules only he knows by heart. Then he turns back and looks directly at you. "Ahh," he sighs, as if discovering an unfortunate truth. "No, no. Not today."
Stopping point
Stopped immediately after the explicit refusal. Presenting a blue seal, repeatability, other models and long-run rule retention were outside the test.