Narrative Events

Edit tabs/narrative-events.json.

Narrative events are cinematic, multi-turn scripted sequences — an ambush, a ritual, a dramatic confrontation — that the narrator plays out beat by beat. While an event is active, its beats steer story generation and NPC behavior until the event completes or the player disengages.

Required Fields

Field	Requirement
title	Display name of the event
beats	The scripted beats/outline the narrator plays out, in order

Conditional Fields

Field	When to Include
targetTurns	When the event should resolve within a set pace. Recommended 2-4. Without it, the event has no forced turn cap
onCompleteEffects	When completing the event should change game state — reveal quest objectives, set next steps, grant resources, or start follow-up content. Same effect objects as triggers

Never Include

Omit these fields (engine-managed at runtime):

• id (derived from the record key)
• status (starts inactive; engine moves it through active/stopped/completed)
• turnsActive (engine counter, starts 0)
• completedTick (set on completion)
• startingLocation (captured when the event starts)

Starting an Event

There is exactly one start mechanism: a trigger with a narrative-event-start effect.

{
  "triggers": {
    "ambush_springs": {
      "conditions": [
        { "type": "party-location", "operator": "equals", "value": "Blackwood Pass" }
      ],
      "effects": [
        { "type": "narrative-event-start", "eventId": "bandit-ambush" }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Only ONE event can be active at a time — a narrative-event-start effect that fires while another event is active is silently ignored.

While Active

• The event’s beats are injected into story generation and NPC behavior each turn
• The story gets extra length allowance
• NO new generated quests are offered until the event ends
• Player agency rule: the narrator will not force unresolved beats if the player refuses, leaves, or disengages

Pacing with targetTurns

With targetTurns: N, the narrator is told to aim to complete within N active turns and to make steady progress each turn. Hard safety valve: the event is force-completed after 2×N active turns. Without targetTurns there is no forced cap.

Completion vs Stop

The AI judges each turn:

• Complete when the intended outcome has clearly happened and all material beats are expressed. Status becomes completed, a “Narrative Event Completed” status update is shown, and onCompleteEffects are applied
• Stop when the player temporarily disengages — leaves the starting location, defers, shifts focus (NOT while arguing/fighting/investigating within the event). Status becomes stopped, no effects run, no status update
• Completion wins if both would apply

Resuming and Restarting

• A stopped event auto-resumes (preserving its turn count) when the conditions of any trigger carrying its narrative-event-start effect become true again with no other event active
• A completed event can only restart via a recurring trigger; restarting resets the turn count

Important Gotchas

• One at a time: a start effect while another event is active is silently ignored — sequence events with narrative-event-status conditions
• Effects only on completion: a stopped event runs no effects; put must-happen state changes on separate triggers if they can’t wait for completion
• Keep beats focused: recommended at most ~4 events per world
• Quests can complete off events: give a quest a completion condition of type narrative-event-completed with the event’s eventId (see the quests skill)
• Branch on event state: triggers can use the narrative-event-status condition (inactive | active | stopped | completed)

Schema

interface NarrativeEventDefinition {
  title: string
  beats: string
  targetTurns?: number
  onCompleteEffects?: Effect[]
}

Reference

For detailed documentation, see narrative-events-reference.md.