Steering the story

An AI Dungeon Master is good at running a scene and bad at knowing when the table wants a different one. The lead's job is to say so, with tools that change the words without touching the numbers.

Direct mode

The fourth message mode. A Direct message is an instruction to the Dungeon Master, not an action in the story: "Start an encounter with both husks, draw the battle map for the glass plain and roll initiative." "Skip to the morning." "Let Sera find the letter." The Dungeon Master obeys within the rules: it still rolls, still asks for saves, still cannot hand out a hit that did not land.

The story tools

On the menu of every Dungeon Master passage, and on the Lead tab for the latest one:

• Reroll with guidance. Regenerate the passage, optionally with a note: "less florid", "she would not agree so quickly", "you forgot the dog". Only the words change. Dice already rolled, sheet changes already applied and resolved outcomes stay identical, so a reroll can never undo a hit or a death.
• Continue. Ask for more when a passage stopped short.
• Fix. Edit a passage in place: a wrong name, a typo, a line to cut.
• Rewind. Return the campaign to the snapshot taken at a chapter boundary. Everything after it, dice included, is discarded, and the table is told.

Pacing

By default the Dungeon Master waits for the table: it answers once every player with the table open has acted or pressed Pass, or after a quiet spell (five minutes unless changed). While it waits, Go on now on the banner makes it answer whoever has acted. Settings, Players and permissions, Pacing changes the wait or switches it to Answers the first post. The Lead tab sets the rest of the pace: how long passages run and how eagerly the Dungeon Master spotlights each player. Hold submissions collects every player's action and resolves them together instead of turn by turn. Focus pings nudge a quiet player: the Dungeon Master turns to them next. How often fights come, in the AI storytelling settings, makes the story lean toward talk and exploring or toward trouble.

Coordinating the party

With held submissions, players can propose a coordinated plan. The lead sets the order in which its actions resolve before sending it to the DM. In Party, travel formation records a separate shared marching order; players can accept or request changes affecting their characters.

A turn that halted

Every Dungeon Master turn ends, and says why if it ends badly: while it runs, the table shows what stage it has reached. If a turn crashes (the model timed out, the backend went away), the table is not stuck. The Lead tab offers to send the turn back in; it resumes from the persisted conversation, nothing is re-rolled and no context is lost. A turn that is waiting on a physical roll says whose.

Reading the arc

The Story tab shows the lead the secret arc: the beats ahead, the antagonist's plan, the twists. Edit it to bend the campaign, or leave it and watch. Players see the party's view only.

The Context tab

When the Dungeon Master seems to have forgotten something, the Context tab shows exactly what it was told last turn, block by block, and what each block cost against the context window, the tool definitions included. A story that has outgrown its window will show its early chapters compacted to a line; a larger window or a note in the lore fixes it. A local model needs at least 16K tokens to narrate and 24K to run fights, and 32K or more is recommended.

The steering seat

A campaign created with AI narrates, I steer seats its creator behind the screen: no character and no party slot, the arc, the console, directions to the AI between turns, and the last word on a disputed ruling. The AI still narrates every turn, and the party lead is a player like any other, so nobody at the table carries a spoiler.

Disputed rulings

At any AI-narrated table, a player can choose Dispute this ruling on a narrated passage and say why. The whole table sees the dispute in a bar, and whoever steers the story (the steerer, or the party lead at a plain AI table) upholds it, overrules it, or puts it to a vote of every player; a majority settles it and a tie upholds. The outcome is written into the chronicle, so the narrator reads it on its next turn.

Damage needs a yes

A game setting can send the damage, healing and conditions the Dungeon Master aims at a player to that player for approval first, the way item offers already work.

Handing over

The lead can seat a person as the Dungeon Master from the lobby (make DM), at which point the AI goes quiet, story authority moves to that seat, and the tools on this page belong to them. Assisted mode lets them hand pieces back to the AI. See Human DM mode.