Dungeon Master Manual

Complete guide to running and managing roleplay sessions from the DM interface.

Getting Started

Dashboard

The Dashboard is your home base. It shows:

• Active/Suspended Sessions — how many sessions are running or paused
• Character Sheets — total character templates in your library
• System-Wide Usage — aggregate token counts, costs, images generated, and last activity across all sessions
• Per-Session Cost Breakdown — table showing tokens and cost for each session
• Recent Sessions — quick-access cards for your most recent sessions with Open/Config buttons

Creating a Session

1. Click + New Session from the Dashboard or Sessions tab.
2. Optionally Load Scenario to pre-fill settings from a saved template.
3. Enter a Session Name (required) and optional description.
4. Set the Starting Location name and description.
5. Add characters:
   • Choose Characters — pick from your library manually
   • Choose for Me — AI selects a complementary cast based on the scenario
   • Generate for Session — create new characters on the fly
6. Arrange turn order by dragging characters in the picker.
7. Click Save to create the session.

Character Library

Creating Characters

Click + New Character in the Characters tab. Fill in:

Character Images

Each character can have multiple profile images. In the character modal:

• Click Gen Image to generate a portrait using AI.
• Select the Image Model (gpt-image-1, dall-e-3, or gemini) and quality level.
• Add a Prompt Adjustment for extra guidance (e.g., "looking sinister, dark lighting").
• Browse multiple images with the ← / → navigation arrows.
• The active image appears as the character's profile throughout the app.

AI Character Generation

Generate entire casts at once:

1. Click Generate Characters in the Characters tab.
2. Set the count (1-10), provider, and model.
3. Optionally configure gender, role, and profession for each slot.
4. Add guidance text for overall theme/style.
5. Generated characters appear in a preview grid — edit, discard, or keep each one.

Discarded characters go to the Discard Bucket where you can revisit or permanently delete them. Deleted characters go to the Recycle Bin for potential recovery.

Filtering & Search

The collapsible filter bar at the top of the Characters tab lets you:

• Search by name, personality, or profession
• Filter by Disposition range (dangerous to friendly)
• Filter by Moral Alignment range (evil to good)
• Click Reset to clear all filters

Scenarios

Creating Scenarios

Scenarios are reusable session templates. Create one from the Scenarios tab or save a running session as a scenario.

• Name & Description — use <char1>, <char2> placeholders for character names
• Starting Location — where the story begins
• Initial DM Input — opening narration with character placeholders
• Global Rules — hard constraints the DM must obey
• Character Rules — behavioral guidelines for AI characters
• Required Roles — roles that need to be filled when casting

AI Casting

When creating a session from a scenario:

• The Recommend Cast button analyzes scenario roles and suggests characters from your library.
• Choose for Me auto-selects the best-matching characters.
• Generate for Session creates brand-new characters tailored to the scenario.

Running Sessions

Turn Management

The live session view centers on the Narration Box — a scrolling transcript of the story.

Advancing Turns

• Next Turn — processes the next character's action through the full AI pipeline (intent → resolve → narrate → memories).
• Each turn's narration appears with the character's portrait, name, and role badge.
• Click on the thought bubble to see a character's internal monologue (AI thinking).

Turn Order Sidebar

The right sidebar shows the character turn order. You can:

• Drag to reorder characters
• Skip individual characters (pause icon)
• Promote a character to act next
• Set Turns per Round for each character
• Remove characters from the session

DM Controls

Direct World Entry

Text entered here is added verbatim to the world state and broadcast as narration. Use this for environmental descriptions, NPC speech, or scene-setting that doesn't need AI interpretation.

DM LLM Instruction

Guidance for the narrator AI to process on the next turn. The instruction is queued (shown as "Pending") and consumed when the next character acts. Use this to steer the story: "Have the lights go out" or "Introduce a new NPC who is suspicious of the group."

Undo Last Turn

Reverts the story to the state before the last character acted. Rolls back events, canon state, belief states, rolling summary, and memories.

Rewind Here

Each narration entry has a Rewind Here button. Click it to roll the entire story back to that specific point. All subsequent events and memories are removed.

DM Commands

Persistent hidden instructions injected into AI character prompts. Characters follow these commands without them appearing in the narration.

Each command can target a specific character or all characters, and has a scope: Next Turn (single use), Rest of Round, or Persistent (ongoing until removed).

Edit & Reroll Last Turn

Two surgical tools for correcting or redoing a character's action, appearing on the last narration entry only:

Edit (pencil icon)

• Opens a modal with the current action text pre-filled.
• Modify the text and click Save Edit.
• The narration updates in-place — no re-pipeline.
• Old memories from the event are deleted and new memories are created from the edited text, so characters don't "remember" content that was edited out.

Reroll (dice icon)

• Discards the last turn entirely.
• Rolls back to the previous snapshot, then re-runs the full pipeline from scratch: new intent → resolve → narrate → memories.
• The result is a completely new action by the same character.

Session Settings

Narrator Mode

Toggle with the Mode button in the session header.

Turn Advance Mode

Full Auto Mode

Available when Turn Advance is set to Auto. Runs multiple complete rounds without intervention.

1. Set the number of Rounds (1-100).
2. Click Start to begin auto-play.
3. Progress shows as "Round X/Y, Turn Z".
4. Click Stop at any time to halt.

DM Interference Level

Slider from 1 (No Interference) to 10 (Creative Injection):

• 1-3 (Low) — The narrator only reports what characters explicitly do. No atmosphere, no new elements.
• 4-7 (Medium) — The narrator adds environment details, NPC reactions, and hints at consequences. Balanced storytelling.
• 8-10 (High) — The narrator has full creative authority. Introduces complications, twists, new NPCs, and dramatic moments.

Response Length

Slider from 1 (Brief) to 10 (Elaborate). Controls how verbose the narrator's output is. Default is 4 (concise).

Reactive Characters

When enabled, characters who are directly interacted with can jump ahead in the turn queue for an immediate response, creating more natural conversational flow.

• Toggle On/Off to enable the feature.
• Reaction Sensitivity slider (1-10) controls how easily characters react:
  • 1 = Conservative (only extreme interactions trigger)
  • 10 = Aggressive (any mention triggers a reaction)

Interactive Mode

When enabled via the Go Interactive button (in the player view header) or the admin endpoint, players gain the ability to Edit and Reroll the last turn from their player view.

This is a session-level flag. When turned off, the player edit/reroll buttons disappear and the endpoints reject requests.

Stream Narration

Toggle with the Stream button in the session header. When enabled, narration text appears token-by-token with a blinking cursor as the LLM generates it, instead of appearing all at once after generation completes.

This is purely a delivery mechanism change — the same tokens are generated either way, so there is no cost difference. It reduces perceived latency on longer narrations (response length 5+).

If a player joins mid-stream or reconnects, the TurnComplete event still carries the full text as a fallback, so no content is lost.

Turn Timeout

Set how long (in minutes) a human player has to submit their action before the character auto-skips. Set to 0 for no timeout (infinite).

Photostory

Setup

Photostory generates scene images after each complete round of turns.

• Toggle with the Photostory button in the session header.
• Configure Images per Round (1-4).
• Choose Provider: OpenAI ($) or Gemini (free tier, 1,500 images/day).
• Set Resolution: 1024x1024, 1536x1024 (landscape), 1024x1536 (portrait), or Auto.
• Select Style: Auto, Cinematic 3D, Storybook Illustration, AAA Game Cutscene, or Storybook Key Art.

Visualize & Album

• Each narration entry has a Visualize this button that generates an on-demand image for that specific moment.
• The Photo Album button opens a gallery of all generated scene images for the session.
• The Gallery button (top nav) shows all images across all sessions and characters.

Global Settings

Overview

The Settings tab lets you configure default values for every new session. When you create a session, it inherits these global defaults automatically — no need to reconfigure each time. Changes here do not affect existing sessions.

Session Behavior

AI Models

Three model roles control which LLM processes each part of the simulation:

Features

Narrative Rules

These become the default values. When creating a session, the Global Rules field in the session creator can override Hard Rules for that session.

Tools

Player Links

Human-controlled characters get unique player links. Each link contains a session ID, character ID, and access token. Share these with players so they can connect via the Player View.

Player links appear in the session's character list and can be copied to clipboard.

Fork & Export

• Fork Session — creates a branch of the story from a snapshot point. The original continues independently.
• Save as Scenario — converts the current session state into a reusable scenario template. You can choose which characters to keep as permanent, convert to ephemeral, or remove.
• Export Story — downloads the session's narration as a readable document.

Replay & Reboot

Available on suspended sessions with turns:

• RePlay — resets the session and replays all turns with a different LLM model. All characters are treated as AI.
• Reboot — same as RePlay but preserves human character control types.

Token Usage

Click the token counter in the world state card to open the Token Dashboard:

• Total input/output tokens and cost
• Breakdown by model (calls, tokens, cost per model)
• Breakdown by API provider

Rules & Tone

Access via the session Config button:

• Hard Rules — absolute constraints the DM and AI characters must obey (e.g., age restrictions, forbidden content types).
• Character Rules — behavioral guidelines injected into character AI prompts.
• Tone — emotional and atmospheric direction for the story.