Game Memory

The Game Master remembers your whole campaign. No model can keep thousands of turns in its head word for word, so as a game grows, Craft folds older play into chapters: written accounts of what happened, kept in the game's memory. The GM reads the story so far every turn, and looks further back whenever it needs to.

This happens on its own in every game. There's nothing to set up, and you don't need memory files or note-taking instructions in your world.

What the GM reads every turn

1. The story so far. A summary of the whole game, from its first turn up to the latest chapter. It's kept to about 800 words however long the game runs, so older events get shorter as the story grows.
2. The latest chapter, in full. Its title, a one or two sentence synopsis, and a detailed account of what happened, point by point, with the turns each point comes from.
3. Everything since, word for word. Every turn after the latest chapter, exactly as it was played.

When the latest chapter changes something the summary says, the GM goes with the chapter: it's the newer of the two.

When a chapter is written

A chapter is written when the turns since the last one grow past a set size, about 150 turns of play, depending on how long the turns are. It can come sooner at a natural break: when the party moves to a new place and about half that much has built up, the scene being left becomes a chapter.

Your latest move and the GM's reply to it always stay word for word, so the GM keeps the exact words of what it just asked you or set up. Chapters are written in the background, and writing them doesn't cost you anything.

Remembering further back

The summary keeps the shape of the whole story, but it can't hold every detail. For those, every chapter is kept in full in the game's search index, alongside your world's files. When the story needs something from long ago, such as what the harbourmaster promised or who still owes the party money, the GM asks research. Answers give earlier play in the order it happened, so the latest word on a thread comes last.

In Inspect turn, a research answer that found earlier play names the chapter it came from, such as "Compaction 5: The Ambush at Thornfield Bridge".

Editing and deleting

• Delete from here (in a message's menu) also removes any chapter that reaches the turns you delete. The turns before them come back word for word, and fold into a new chapter once enough builds up again.
• Editing a message, or deleting just one, leaves the chapters as they are. A chapter that already covered that turn still describes it the way it was.

Redoing your last turn never touches a chapter, because your latest move always stays word for word.

What belongs in files

Memory is for the story: what happened, who said what, what was promised. Things the game has to get exactly right belong somewhere the GM updates as they change:

• Character sheets for HP, inventory, money and conditions. The GM records each change the moment it happens.
• Trackers for the time, objectives, clocks and standings the story depends on.
• Files for the people, places and items play creates. The GM makes them as they come up.

What to expect

Perfect long-term memory is hard. The longer and more detailed a campaign gets, the bigger the haystack. The GM should remember far more than you'd expect, but a small detail from hundreds of turns back may slip.

If it does, mention it in your next move ("Remember, Sera still owes us that favor"), and the GM will pick it up from there. If something must never be forgotten, put it on a sheet or a tracker.