Narrative threads

A Narrative Thread is any story element that spans multiple sessions. It might be a murder mystery, a faction war, a debt coming due, or a prophecy the party is trying to outrun. The Narrative Thread Tracker keeps all of them visible so nothing quietly dies on the vine.

Access the tracker from the world sidebar under Campaign > Narrative Threads.

Thread status

Threads move through four statuses:

Status	Meaning
Open	Introduced but not yet active — the party knows it exists
Active	Currently in play; the party is engaged with it
Resolved	Reached a conclusion (satisfying or not)
Abandoned	Retired without resolution — a dead end, a plot you dropped, or a consequence the party avoided

Use Abandoned rather than deleting threads you dropped. It is honest record-keeping.

Creating a thread

Open the Narrative Thread Tracker from the world sidebar.
Click New Thread.
Give it a short title — something you will recognize at a glance during session prep.
Add an optional description with relevant context, linked entities, and any private GM notes.
Set the initial status.

You can also create threads from the post-session debrief. If you opened a new story element this session, add it there and it appears immediately in the tracker.

The session age counter

Each thread displays how many sessions it has been open without a status change. This is your primary signal for threads that are aging out.

💡Tip

A thread at 4+ sessions without advancement is worth a deliberate check: is this still relevant? If yes, plan something for it. If no, Abandon it and move on.

Advancing threads

From the post-session debrief, select every thread that was touched this session and update its status. A single debrief update resets the session age counter for that thread.

You do not have to resolve threads in order. A thread can jump from Open to Resolved in one session if the story demands it.

Thread types to track

Threads work for any recurring story element. Common types:

Mysteries — whodunit, what-is-this, where-did-it-go
Faction conflicts — wars, political maneuvering, power vacuums
Character personal stakes — a character's unfinished business, tied directly to their arc
World-level crises — the approaching army, the spreading plague, the failing wards
Promises and oaths — things the party swore to do (or had sworn to them)
Recurring villains — not a one-session antagonist but an ongoing presence

One thread can cover multiple categories. A recurring villain running a faction in the middle of a war is one thread, not three.

Visibility to players

By default, all threads are GM Only. You can mark individual threads as Party-visible to display them in the player portal.

📝Note

Party-visible threads show players what story elements are actively in play. This is useful for groups who track their own plots, or for clearly telegraphing that the party knows a clock is ticking.

Party-visible threads show the title, status, and your optional public description. Private GM notes on the thread are never shown.

Troubleshooting

A thread's session age counter isn't resetting after I run the debrief. The counter resets when you mark the thread as touched in the debrief's thread update section — not just from completing the debrief. Open the debrief and confirm you selected the thread in the threads list and logged an advance or status change.

I can't find the Narrative Thread Tracker in my world sidebar. The tracker lives under Campaign > Narrative Threads in the world sidebar. If you don't see a Campaign section, the world may not have an active campaign attached. Create or attach a campaign from World Settings and the Campaign section will appear.

A thread I created in the debrief isn't appearing in the tracker. Threads created via the debrief's "threads opened" field are added to the tracker automatically but may take a moment to appear. Refresh the tracker page. If the thread still doesn't appear, check the debrief was fully submitted — a half-saved debrief may not have committed the thread.

A Party-visible thread isn't showing in the player portal. Confirm the thread's visibility is explicitly set to Party-visible — the default is GM Only. Open the thread and check its visibility setting. Also confirm the player has an accepted campaign invite for the campaign the thread is attached to.