Narrative and Memory

This page explains how the story is written, how you get suggestions after it, and how a long game remembers what happened earlier. "Narrator" and "Dialogue Narrator" are two ways to tell the story that replace each other, so a game uses only one of them.

Plugin	In short
Narrator (narrator)	Tells the story like a novel, one scene per turn.
Dialogue Narrator (chat-mode-narrator)	Tells the story mostly through character dialogue, for chat-style play.
Action Suggestions (guide)	After each part of the story, recaps what came before, points out the choice in front of you, and offers actions to pick from.
Reply Variants (branch-reply)	Writes several other versions of the same turn, and you pick one.
Story Memory (memory)	Remembers the plot, the scene, character relationships and the player character's state.
History Compaction (history-compaction)	Shortens very old messages into a summary, so a long game stays within the model's length limit.

Pick a way to tell the story

narrator and chat-mode-narrator do the same job: they write the next part of the story based on your action. They cannot be on at the same time. Pick one.

	Narrator (narrator)	Dialogue Narrator (chat-mode-narrator)
Reads like	A 200 to 400 character novel passage	A conversation, with characters taking turns to speak
Good for	Exploration, investigation, adventure, and other long stories	Romance, everyday life, roleplay, and other play that relies on chatting
Matching packs	Traditional Story, Low Cost	Dialogue Mode
Works best with	Nothing else	Scene Stage (scene-stage) and Action Suggestions (guide)

How to choose:

• If you are not sure, use the gameplay pack the world recommends. The world has already chosen one for you.
• If you want to read a story and value description and reasoning, choose "Narrator".
• If you want characters to talk back and forth with you, and you want to see portraits and a stage, choose "Dialogue Narrator".
• If you want to keep model costs down, choose the "Low Cost" pack. It uses "Narrator" and has no extra model calls for things like action suggestions.

NOTE

Both narrators write cues.scene when the location changes and cues.mood when the mood changes, following any mood list supplied in context. Unchanged cues are omitted. A character lookup with no match returns a not-found error and the closest names; the model can retry a listed name or leave the fact unknown. A tool's staged notice means the change commits at turn end and may still be rejected. The narrator should continue without repeating the notice or calling again for the same change.

Either narrator can run on its own. Scene Stage adds the stage presentation and Action Suggestions adds suggested actions; the story still works without them.

When Inventory is active, both narrators can use check-bag to look up carried items and change-inventory to settle purchases, trades, gifts or consumption before writing prose, with payment first. A refused call means the exchange does not happen. Without Inventory, the tools are absent and narration continues as usual.

Narrator (narrator)

Continues the story from your latest action, describing the scene, how characters react, and the results. It writes one passage per turn, and usually ends on a cliffhanger, a question, or an action that is not finished yet. It writes only story text and does not list options. Action choices are handled by "Action Suggestions".

What you will see

The story text in the chat area.

When it is on

It is a core plugin (kind: core) and the default way to tell the story. The "Traditional Story" and "Low Cost" gameplay packs both include it.

What you can change

Setting	What it does	Default
Perspective	Who tells the story and how narration refers to your character: the player character in first person (I), second person (you) or third person (the character's name), an omniscient narrator, or a game master (DM) speaking to the players. Dialogue keeps each speaker's own person.	Player character, second person (you)

A world can set a default for this setting in pluginSettings. Your own setting takes priority.

Notes

The story is shown while it is written; once it is written, its narration is checked for the correct person. If it is wrong, the model is asked to rewrite it, up to two extra model calls: the draft shown so far is cleared and replaced by the rewrite, and what stays on screen is the text that passed the check. The omniscient narrator may not call characters "I" or "you"; the game-master perspective skips the person check.

The story is written in segments: each one is narration, dialogue or action, and dialogue and action name who it is. The stage uses this to give each paragraph its speaker's name tag. When a name matches no character, the name tag shows that name as written.

The character you play

The character sheet the Narrator gives the model is the character you are currently playing, and the person check is anchored on it too (the omniscient and game-master perspectives do not centre on the player character). When a session has several player characters (you play more than one), the other player characters are listed with the supporting cast in the character profiles, tagged [player]. With one player character nothing changes. When a seat binds two or more characters, a current-character selector appears above the composer, or above free input in stage mode. For how the current character is chosen and switched, see Seats.

Dialogue Narrator (chat-mode-narrator)

Makes the story feel more like a conversation between characters. Each paragraph shows who is speaking, and the stage's name tags and "Speaking" marker follow the speaker.

What you will see

The story text in the chat area, split by speaker. Portraits and the stage are shown by "Scene Stage". See Stage.

When it is on

Optional. The "Dialogue Mode" gameplay pack includes it.

What you can change

Setting	What it does	Default
Perspective	Same as "Narrator".	Player character, second person (you)
Dialogue ratio	Roughly how much of a reply is character dialogue and inner reactions. Range 30 to 90.	70
Reply length	Short, medium or long.	Medium

A world can preset these settings. For example, "Harukaze Academy · Spring Mint" (遥风学园·春日薄荷) sets the dialogue ratio to 80 and the reply length to short.

Works with

• It works best with "Scene Stage" to supply the characters on stage, and "Action Suggestions" to supply scene hints. Without them it still tells the story, as plain dialogue narration with no stage.
• It cannot be on at the same time as "Narrator".

The character you play

As with "Narrator": the character sheet and the person check follow the character you are currently playing, and the other player characters are listed in the character profiles, tagged [player]. See Narrator · The character you play.

Action Suggestions (guide)

After each part of the story, recaps the relevant earlier events, explains the choice you are facing now, and then gives 3 to 4 short actions you can use right away.

What you will see

• Traditional Story: below the story in the chat area, a suggestion block appears with a recap, the current choice, and a few action buttons.
• Dialogue Mode: the actions also appear in the choice bar on the stage.

When you tap an action, it is only filled into the input box at the bottom. It is not sent. You can edit it, or write your own action and send it yourself.

When it is on

Optional. The "Traditional Story" and "Dialogue Mode" gameplay packs include it. "Low Cost" does not. It adds one model call per turn, using the model of the plugin role. See Connect a model.

Works with

It needs a storytelling plugin ("Narrator" or "Dialogue Narrator").

Reply Variants (branch-reply)

The same turn can be generated again, giving you several different versions. You pick the one you want. The version you pick replaces the original wording of that turn in the rest of the story.

What you will see

A "Reply candidates" block appears below the story in the chat area. Each candidate is an option. Click it to use it. For the current turn you can also press the number keys. Under each candidate there are two smaller actions, "Draft" and "Send". The block also has "Regenerate", which asks for a new batch of versions.

Regenerating uses the model of the fast role. If no model is available, the original text is kept. No versions are made up.

When it is on

Optional. The "Dialogue Mode" gameplay pack includes it. Worlds such as "Emberback Relay" and "Lantern Barrow: The First Delve" list it as recommended or required.

Works with

It does not depend on a particular storytelling plugin. You can use it with either "Narrator" or "Dialogue Narrator".

Story Memory (memory)

After each turn, it records the key points of the story automatically, and includes them when the story is written later. In a long game, it helps the model remember clues, promises and relationships between characters.

The player profile follows the source turn’s actor, falling back to the primary seat’s current character. Recall matching excludes only the primary seat’s current character’s name; other player characters’ names remain included.

What you will see

The "Core Memory" panel on the right lists what is remembered, in blocks. There are four blocks by default: Story State, Character Relationships, Current Scene, and Player Profile. At the start of a game the panel is empty. It fills in after the first turn ends.

Each block is rewritten in full every turn, so it stores the "current state". Separately, up to 3 new facts can be recorded each turn, and old facts are never edited. When your later input mentions something related, the related old facts are brought back.

When it is on

It is a core plugin (kind: core). The "Traditional Story", "Dialogue Mode" and "Low Cost" gameplay packs all recommend it.

Updating the memory takes one more model call. It runs in the background, so you do not have to wait for it. It uses the model of the memory role. See Connect a model. If an update fails, the story of that turn is still saved, and the update is tried again on the next turn.

NOTE

Memory is summarized by a model. It may miss details that were mentioned only once, or misunderstand them. For state that must be exact, such as attributes and items, check their own panels. Do not rely only on memory.

What world authors can preset

A world can replace the four default blocks with its own memory blocks, so memory records clues, relics, countdowns and similar things that suit its genre. The file is data/memory-blocks.json. Write one object: id is world, and the blocks list has, for each item, label, displayName and extractionHint. icon and maxChars are optional. Do not add a block for data that another dimension or plugin already records.

"Mistport: The Riftide Chronicle" (雾港・裂潮纪) includes such a file. For field details, see World data reference.

History Compaction (history-compaction)

When a story gets longer, the early conversation can fill the length the model can read. This plugin condenses the older conversation into summaries in sections, and keeps the most recent turns exactly as they are.

What you will see

Usually nothing. The original messages are still kept in the save. The model just sees the summary instead. A summary the model stopped before finishing counts as a failure, and a half summary never replaces the original conversation. If compaction fails three times in a row, the app tells you that the story's memory could not be condensed.

When it is on

It is a core plugin (kind: core). No gameplay pack needs to list it. Compaction uses the model of the fast role. It has no settings you can change.

NOTE

Summaries lose exact wording and small details, and numbers may be turned into rough figures. For details you need to remember exactly, use "Story Memory".

Next

• Stage, portraits and scenes: Stage
• Change the model for a task: Connect a model
• Preset data for a world: Starting content
• Back to the overview: Built-in Plugins and Features

The story interface also provides the host’s advancement and Stop controls. The story provider decides whether to request another round. The ensemble composition below can recommend continuation through its selected strategy; the host follows advice from the committed story.

Ensemble dialogue and character actors

Dialogue Narrator remains playable alone. With optional Character Actor (character-agent) and Turn Policy (turn-policy), a pre-turn function prepares the cast and the story agent delegates each character in plan order, combining accepted speech/actions and connective narration into one story. This consumer runs sequentially even for parallel advice; each actor adds a model call and director adds another. A failed actor loses its contribution. An empty, unavailable or entirely failed plan returns narrator-only play and user yield. Scripted tests establish transport and settlement, not real-model prose quality or semantic obedience.

Turn Policy offers one service; choose the algorithm in its own Strategy setting. It resolves automatically when it is the only provider. With other providers, choose a service in Orchestration.

Strategy	Behaviour
mention	Present characters named in current actions or the last segment, in presence order; yields user.
list	Configured newline-separated names/aliases first, skipping known absent characters, then remaining names in stable order; empty configuration preserves presence order.
random	Samples present characters without replacement, excluding current action actors; previous segment speakers remain eligible.
manual	In Choose actors, enter one exact name/alias per line in actors, at most 32 submitted names in total; deduplicates in submission order, with optional direction in action text.
director	Borrows the planner's text slot, including browser request bindings, for one structured plan; without a gateway or usable slot, uses mention with a reason; a failed model call yields narrator-only play.

List/random may continue after a host direction or host/spectator/system advance. Ordinary player speech/actions yield user. Manual never replays an earlier selection. Unknown, ambiguous, raw-ID or absent names invalidate the whole batch; narration asks for corrected names and yields. Spectators cannot choose actors. Limits are in settings.

Actors receive only the selected public profile, bounded witnessed stories and deliberately supplied current observations. Missing history does not license invented conversations. Intent stays out of story, exports and cues. Silence or failure is not departure. The bundled actor has no inventory tool; replacement actors retain staged-operation semantics.

The shared brief contains only current speech/actions and deliberately established scene narration. It does not replay a previous scene's private exchanges or omniscient narration. Policy selection keeps history; the runner supplies each actor's witnessed history separately. Stage presence informs both the planner's selection and the narrator's descriptions without being copied into actor briefs.

The existing Narrator already supports the game-master perspective. In a world file:

pluginSettings:
  narrator:
    perspective: dm

The player's Perspective setting overrides this world default for subsequent narration while preserving player agency. Narrator perspective and the human seat's role are independent choices.