Trackers, beats, and story arcs

These tools change what the engine knows as the journey moves. Use them when instructions alone cannot keep a promise ("trust only rises after the confession", "the storm cannot start before turn 8").

Trackers

Trackers are named pieces of state. Gameplay → Trackers holds world-level ones (reputation, time of day, a mystery flag). Per-character trackers (personal stats, a private debt) live on the character.

A journey can carry up to 20 trackers in total (world trackers plus the most tracker-heavy character). Past that, some may be dropped at start.

Each tracker has:

• Name and a starting value
• Description, so the AI knows what it means
• Update instructions, so the AI knows when to change it
• Hidden: the player does not see it, the AI still does
• Readonly to the AI: only settings and story-beat effects may change it. Use this for identity the model must not rewrite (which class was picked, which secret is true).

Display types

On Loom worlds you pick how a tracker looks:

Word values often steer fiction better than raw numbers. "Open inquiry" tells the narrator what to do. "2" does not.

Story beats

Advanced → Story Beats are conditional events. A beat has a stable id (rename beat_3 to something you will remember, such as act1_storm_breaks), optional text for the turn it fires, optional text that stays in context afterward, conditions, and effects.

All conditions on a beat must pass. Kinds include:

• After turn N
• Player character is a given PC
• Tracker value (including "does not equal")
• Random chance per turn
• After / not after other beats
• An AI-judged narrative moment ("the player confronts the steward about the missing seal")
• Match any of, an OR group of deterministic conditions

Deterministic conditions (turns, trackers, other beats) fire in the engine. Narrative conditions fire from the AI's output, so the effect is locked in from the next turn.

Effects include setting or retiring a tracker, replacing a named instruction, changing a character description or outfit, changing the objective or narration style, presenting a choice, requesting input, revealing secret lore or a location, moving the scene, showing an Extra Image, forcing a turn image, or spotlighting a character image.

Beats can be one-shot or on a cooldown. The editor warns about dangling references. It does not block save, so unfinished wiring is allowed in a draft.

Reveal lore is how secret lore becomes visible. Pair every secret with a beat, or the editor will warn that the entry can never surface. Details: How do I make secret lore entries?.

Story Arcs

Advanced → Story Arcs (beta) are staged plotlines: a mystery that opens as trust rises, a romance that moves through phases. One stage is active at a time. Its text fully replaces the previous stage, and the narrator never sees your outline or future stages.

Later stages advance when their conditions pass, in order. A stage can include a one-time transition note so the shift lands as a scene, not a silent gear change. You can delay stage 1 until its own conditions pass, which is how you chain Act 1 into Act 2.

Under the hood, an arc is a named instruction block plus one beat per stage. Those beats stay visible in Story Beats, so you can hang extra effects on a stage (a tracker write, a lore reveal, an outfit change).

Write each stage as if it stands alone. Restate what still matters. If a stage needs pacing, put it in the text: "Escalate suspicion. Do not name the culprit yet."

The full reference is How do Story Arcs work?.