Guide sections

Story arcs

Understand AI-detected story arcs, their phases, and how session recaps make arc detection more useful.

Story arc detection is an AI feature, so it needs an active AI subscription (Companion or Power).

Arcs vs. Campaign Markers

These two sound similar but do different jobs:

Story ArcsCampaign Markers (Plot Threads)
Who creates themAI detects them from your play historyYou author them by hand
ScopeBig, campaign-spanning storylinesIndividual hooks, mysteries, and threads
What they tell youThe shape and momentum of your narrativeThe status of a specific thread you’re tracking
Where they liveStory Arcs widgetPlot Threads widget

Both appear as separate widgets on the Campaign Intelligence dashboard. Use Campaign Markers to track the threads you’ve deliberately planted; use Story Arcs to understand the larger patterns those threads add up to.

The eight phases

Every detected arc is placed in one of eight narrative phases. Together they trace a story from opening to close:

  1. Setup - establishing the premise and the players involved
  2. Rising Action - tension builds, complications stack up
  3. Midpoint - a turning point or revelation shifts the story
  4. Escalation - the stakes climb higher
  5. Climax - the critical confrontation or decision
  6. Falling Action - the consequences play out
  7. Resolution - the arc reaches its conclusion
  8. Dormant - the arc is on hold, waiting to be picked back up

Reading the phases across your arcs tells you a lot: three arcs all stuck in Setup might mean you’ve planted more than you’re paying off; an arc sliding into Dormant is a thread the party has drifted away from.

Detecting arcs

Arc detection runs on demand:

  1. Open Campaign Intelligence for the campaign
  2. Find the Story Arcs widget
  3. If no arcs have been detected, click Detect arcs

Detection reads your campaign’s narrative events and groups them into arcs, assigning each a current phase. It uses your monthly AI allowance, and your data goes straight to the engine provider (Anthropic) for analysis. Re-run it whenever your campaign has moved on and you want a fresh read.

Early campaigns

Story arc detection requires at least 5 narrative events. If your campaign has fewer than 5 narrative events, clicking Detect arcs shows Not enough narrative events yet and asks you to complete more sessions before detection can run. Keep playing and recording sessions - full arcs surface once your history grows past that threshold.

Making arcs more accurate

Arc detection is only as good as the history it reads. The single best thing you can do is run the AI Session Recap after each game - it records what happened to each creation, and those outcomes are exactly what arc detection looks at. The more faithfully your sessions are captured, the sharper your arcs.