Campaign Brief and Tone: How Context Shapes Every Session

Generic chatbots forget your world by message three. One of our earliest design decisions was that dungeonmaster.website would not work that way. Every campaign gets a brief — a structured document the AI reads before every session — and a tone slider that steers narration style without you rewriting prompts each week.

Inside the brief

The brief captures what a human DM would keep in a notebook: campaign name, setting paragraph, summary of last session, permanent house rules, and DM instructions scoped to tonight only. You can list NPCs with what they know and whether the party has met them yet. Characters attach to the campaign with class, level, HP, and conditions so the AI does not invent a rogue when you are playing a cleric.

The tone slider runs from grim (low) to heroic (high). At grim settings, descriptions lean toward consequence, scarcity, and moral weight. At heroic settings, the AI celebrates bold action and cinematic reversals. Mid-range values suit mystery and political intrigue. The slider does not change rules — only narration emphasis.

Why tonight-only instructions matter

Persistent instructions belong in house rules or summary. Tonight-only instructions let you steer a single session without polluting long-term memory: "Introduce the wererat smuggler tonight," "Keep combat under 45 minutes," "This session is mostly roleplay at the tavern." After the session ends, those instructions do not carry forward unless you add them to the summary yourself.

Editing without breaking continuity

You can edit the brief between sessions. We recommend updating the summary field with a short recap when you finish play — the AI uses it as ground truth for the next session. If you retcon something, change the summary explicitly; do not assume the model will infer it from chat logs alone.

Stand-in vs persistent vs open table

Campaign mode affects who can start sessions and whether the AI always runs the table. Stand-in mode assumes a human DM exists but may use AI backup. Persistent world mode lets any member start a session with the AI as permanent DM. Open table campaigns appear in discovery for travellers to request joins. The brief works the same in all modes; only permissions differ.

A good brief is shorter than you think. Two paragraphs of setting and three bullet points of house rules beat a ten-page lore bible the AI will not reliably recall.

Campaign brief and tone shipped to all beta users this week. Next up: hardening real-time multiplayer so your whole party sees narration and dice results at once.