Initial Start

{
  "aiInstructions": {
    "generateInitialStart": {
      "Opening Structure": "## Structure\nBeat 1 — WHO: establish who the character is right now through action or presence, not backstory.\nBeat 2 — WHERE: set the scene through their senses — what they see and hear.\nBeat 3 — SITUATION: one active situation already in motion. Do not front-load lore or world history.\n\n## Sensory rules\nVisual and auditory description only. No smell. Olfactory detail is overused — exclude it from the opening scene.\n\n## Pacing\nMatch the register of the storyStart text. Follow the situation as written — do not force conflict into a calm opening or calm into a high-stakes one.",
      "Style Principles": "## Style\nSimple, direct, concrete language. Present tense, third person. Strong verbs, specific nouns. Vary sentence length. Prefer dialogue and action over description.",
      "custom": "## World introduction\nIntroduce world-specific proper nouns with context on first use: 'the merchant guild known as the Silver Scale' — not just 'the Silver Scale'. Assume no prior world knowledge from the player."
    }
  }
}

Fields

Opening Structure

How the first scene is constructed: three-beat structure (WHO → WHERE → one active situation), pacing guardrails (follow the starting situation; don't force problems into a calm opening). Include a sensory restriction: visual and auditory description only — no smell. Olfactory scene-setting is an overused AI cliché in opening scenes; explicitly banning it here consistently suppresses it.

Style Principles

Prose rules specific to the opening scene. May differ from the ongoing narration style in generateStory.

custom

First-scene-only instructions: world introduction pacing, proper noun contextualisation, session opening variety.

Authoring pattern

Common issue — NPCs using the player's name on first meeting. The AI reads the character sheet and will have NPCs address the player by name even before they've introduced themselves. Fix: add to "custom": "NPCs do not know the player character's name unless it has been spoken aloud or the character has introduced themselves in the current scene." Also add the same rule to generateStory → "Character Behavior" so it persists beyond the first scene.

📋 Note: To mandate a literal opening line or framing device (narrator introduction, in-universe preamble) at the start of every new game, see Mandated opening content in the Advanced AI Techniques appendix.