A better storyteller

This is the biggest change to how stories are told since the game began. Your first scene is now written for you, and you can read it first and roll another. The people you meet have lives of their own. Things the story sets up come back when they said they would. And a long list of small things that used to break a scene are gone.

We tested all of it over many long games with four very different kinds of player: one who drifts, one with a plan, one who wants a quiet life, and one who changes their mind halfway. Here's everything that changed.

How you begin

• Pick how your story starts. When your character is made, you choose: A first scene for them (recommended), or Find my own way, which drops you into your starting town to walk in wherever you like.
• Read it before you step in. The first scene is shown to you before it plays: where you are, what's going on, and who's there. Click Begin here when it's right.
• Not quite it? Roll another. Re-roll as often as you like, and steer the next one if you want: "somewhere quieter", "out on the road", "with someone from their past". Each new roll is a different scene, not the same one reworded.
• Not always in town. Your story can start just outside it: in the woods, out in the fields, on the shore, or on the road in. The place is real and on the map.
• A start that fits who you are. A quiet backstory gets a quiet start: you're already busy at something ordinary, with someone nearby to talk to. A backstory with trouble in it starts in the middle of something. Either way the scene ends on a choice that's yours.
• Your character, told by name. Openings no longer slip into "I" as if the narrator were your character.

People with their own lives

• Everyone wants something, and mostly not from you. The baker wants the hay in before the rain. The ferryman wants his debt off his back. Most people ask you for nothing at all.
• They push as hard as their trouble. An easygoing person says a thing once and lets it go. A stubborn one sticks to their own aim. Only someone in real trouble presses, pleads or bargains.
• Ordinary people answer what they're asked. A fisherman who saw something on the water tells you what he saw. A secret held for a price is for people with a reason to need one.
• They do things when you're not looking. Everyone has a next move if nothing changes, and their aims change after scenes: a worry that's settled stops being their worry.
• You can win people over. Each person has one thing that would change their mind about you: eating at their table, saying a name back to them, a straight answer. When it happens, they open up.

Things set up come back

• Someone due at noon comes at noon. When the story says someone will be back, that a ship comes in tonight, or that the rounds pass every quarter-hour, it happens when it was said.
• Warnings matter. "Be behind a door when the dusk bell rings" means something now.
• And let go when they stop mattering. A promise the story has moved past is quietly dropped, not dragged into scenes where it no longer fits.
• More small promises in every scene. The storyteller now plants a hint, a debt or a someone-is-coming here and there, grown from what's already in the scene. Quiet lives get quiet promises: a neighbour bringing perch at noon, not a summons.

The world follows your pace

• The region's troubles come when you go looking. Wolves on the north road and missing caravans reach you when you look for work, or when you walk into the place where they're happening. They don't turn up in the middle of a quiet cup of tea.
• No hooks after a quiet start. After your opening, the world doesn't throw new stories at you until you go looking for one. Between hooks it gives you room, and more room each time you pass one up.
• Choices where the scene really has one. Forks in the road only appear when there's a real decision in the scene. What follows is the world moving, not a bill.

Jobs and favours

• A favour isn't a quest. A neighbour asking you to carry a basket, or a friend inviting you to supper, no longer becomes a quest card.
• Jobs close when they're done. When a job is settled in the story (the brother is home, the sister says keep the money), it comes off your list. Walk away from one and it comes off too.
• Steps tick when they happen. If you did what the step asked on screen, it's done. You don't have to say "and that completes the quest".

Suggested replies

• In your own voice. The reply buttons read the way you'd type them, "I take the dark slice", never "You take the dark slice".
• One row, no clutter. At most four, with no repeats, no names you haven't met, and no amounts nobody mentioned.
• No rest option? Just type it. Anything you can say, you can do.

Time that adds up

• The clock follows the story. If the scene says the afternoon wore on, the clock moves to the afternoon.
• One night is one night. You won't sleep twice by accident, and a scene with no sleep in it never hands you a night's rest.
• The next scene knows the hour turned, so morning light doesn't follow an evening scene.
• Your opening happens at the right hour. No "dusk is coming" in a scene that starts at dawn.

Money that adds up

• Paid once. A purse already handed over isn't paid again because the next scene mentions it.
• You can't spend what you don't have. The scene plays out the shortfall: a cheaper bowl, credit until tomorrow, work in trade, or a no.
• Nobody charges you for what you didn't agree to.
• Rewards are shown in the world's own coin.

Better writing, scene to scene

• No paragraph told twice. A re-sent passage keeps its first telling.
• Everyone keeps their own voice. One person's turn of phrase doesn't wander into everyone else's mouth, and a habit shows once a scene, not every line.
• Journeys are told once. Travel is described when you go, not again on arrival.
• No more engine notes in the story. Things like "could not find location" or "the record is corrected" no longer reach you.
• No officials, fees or paperwork standing between you and the story.

Smaller fixes

• When you go down in a fight, the log says you're down, not slain.
• Only text you mark as out of character, like (OOC: ...) or ((...)), is treated as a note to the game. An in-story question gets answered in the story.
• People only "head off" in the log when you actually see them leave.
• Distances are always in kilometres, matching the trip footer, never turned into miles or leagues.

For world builders

• Worlds on platform credits now run on GLM 5.3 Flash, the model all of the above was tested on. If you picked a model for your world, it stays.
• Turns are lighter. Most turns now go out in fewer steps behind the scenes, and the storyteller only reads the rules a scene needs.
• Your own endpoint, set up properly. If your provider doesn't accept a reasoning setting, the nearest one it does accept is used, instead of falling back to the provider's own (often much slower) default.