Decision Templates

You can find Decision Templates in the sidebar, under Dynamic Components. The list shows every decision in this book: its name, how many options it offers, what it's for, and whether it's currently valid. Click Add Decision Template to create a new one, or click a row to open and edit it.

You build a decision in two views. In the template view you write the question and the options your reader will see. Click the edit pencil on an option to open the item view. There you set when the option appears (Prerequisites) and what happens when the reader picks it (Results).

The template has three settings at the top, then the options themselves.

• Template name: the label shown in the list, and the one you pick when you point a Trigger at this decision. Required, unique per book, up to 70 characters. Choose a name that will still make sense to you in six months.
• Description: notes for yourself about what the decision does. Nobody else sees them. Up to 250 characters.
• Has a title: turn this on to show a short in-fiction prompt above the options in the reader's modal, such as "What do you do?", "Which path?", or "Whose side are you on?". Up to 30 characters.

A decision has one to ten items. These are the options your reader sees and picks from. Each item has:

• Item name: the text the reader reads. It's rich text, so you can use italics, bold, and @-mentions of Glossary Items, the same as in chapter text. Up to 70 characters.
• Media: an optional image or video shown next to the option in the reader's modal. Pick it from your book's media gallery.
• Has Prerequisites: turn this on if the option should only appear when certain conditions are met. See Prerequisites below.
• Roll a dice: turn this on to attach one Dice Template to the item. The dice rolls before the item's results run. Use it when the option is an attempt and the dice should decide whether it succeeds.

The Prerequisites tab

An option can be limited to readers who meet certain conditions: they carry the right item, they've met the right character, their strength is above some number, or they've read a particular chapter. Turn Has Prerequisites on and the tab opens. Each condition checks one thing. Add up to ten; all of them must be true (they combine with AND).

You choose what the reader sees when the conditions are not met:

• Hide the decision item: the option is hidden. The reader never knows it existed.
• Show the decision item, but the reader can't pick it: the option still appears in the list, but greyed out. Use this when you want the reader to see an option they can't take yet.

Prerequisites can't check the item's own dice roll, because the roll happens after the reader picks the option. To act on the roll's outcome, put conditions on the item's results instead: a result can run only when the roll succeeds, or only when it fails.

The Results tab

When the reader picks the option, its results run in the order you list them, up to ten per item. Each result is one of:

• Chapter: reveal a chapter, or a specific header inside one, that the reader couldn't reach before. A reveal opens the path; the reader still walks it themselves. The forward-only rule that applies to Triggers applies here too: a reveal must point past the Trigger that fires this decision, and a backward reveal makes that Trigger invalid.
• Glossary Item: change a character, place, or item. You can set or unset a fact, add or remove a tag, raise or lower a number (by a flat amount or a percentage), reveal the item to the reader, or hide it again. It works on a specific Glossary Item, or on the dynamic Reader / Target Glossary Item placeholders when the target depends on the scene.
• Multi Select: apply one operation to every Glossary Item, chapter, header, or fact that matches a tag filter. Use it for one sweeping change, like alerting every guard in the castle, instead of many individual results.

A decision reaches the reader only through a Trigger. Place a Trigger in the chapter where the choice should happen, and point one of its results at this Decision Template. When the reader gets there and the Trigger's conditions are met, the decision opens. The reader picks an option, the option's results run, and the story continues.

The same template can be fired from any number of Triggers and chapters.

Once a decision is part of a published expansion, it can't be edited or deleted anymore. Its card in the list shows a lock icon, and clicking it won't open the editor. To make changes, use the card's Duplicate action. This creates a copy with (Copy) appended to the name, and you edit that copy. The original stays as it is for the readers who bought that expansion.

A Decision Template can have two kinds of problem, and only one of them blocks publishing.

• The editor refuses to save when an item points at media that has since been deleted. Open the item, pick something new or clear the reference, and save again.
• The template goes invalid when one of its items references something that has since been deleted: a Glossary Item, a chapter, a fact, or a tag that a prerequisite or a result relies on. The list page flags the template with a warning icon and sorts it to the top. The broken option is the first thing you see when you open the decision.

The second kind blocks publishing: the publish check rejects any book with an invalid Decision Template. The first kind doesn't, because the save never went through.

Deleting a Decision Template that's in use elsewhere breaks every Trigger pointing at it. The editor warns you when you delete, so you can go ahead or cancel.