Stacks

Stacks are reusable pools of related content. Instead of selecting one fixed item, dialogue or scene inside an action, you can create a stack and let the player receive or enter one of its entries during play.

Stacks are useful when a result should vary without duplicating the same list in several actions. They can be used for random rewards, rotating dialogue, reusable scene choices and optional detail scenes.

A stack is tied to the kind of content it contains:

• Item stacks: Groups of items that can be granted together or selected randomly.
• Dialogue stacks: Groups of dialogues where one dialogue can be started at random.
• Normal scene stacks: Groups of normal scenes used for random scene transitions.
• Detail scene stacks: Groups of detail scenes used for random overlays or optional close-up interactions.

Use one stack for one clear purpose. For example, keep a treasure reward stack separate from a stack of possible tavern conversations, even if both are used in the same scene.

Item stacks can be used in two ways:

• Random Item: Adds one or more random items from the selected item stack to the player's inventory.
• Add Item Stack to Inventory: Adds every item from the selected item stack to the player's inventory.

Random item stacks work well for loot tables, mystery rewards or variable supplies. Full item-stack rewards work well for starter kits, equipment bundles or chapter setup.

Dialogue stacks let an action start a random dialogue from a selected pool.

This is useful for repeated interactions that should not always say the same thing, such as ambient character comments, rumors, companion banter or inspect responses. The individual dialogues still use the regular Dialogue Editor, including their own lines, options, conditions and actions.

Scene stacks can be used with normal scenes or detail scenes:

• Change to random Scene: Moves the player to a random normal scene from the selected stack.
• Open random Detail Scene: Opens a random detail scene from the selected stack.

Normal scene stacks are useful for randomized travel, room selection or repeatable exploration. Detail scene stacks are useful for optional overlays, close-ups, small discoveries or short scene variations that return the player to the current scene.

Random stack actions can enable Only Once. When enabled, each entry in that stack is selected only once during the playthrough. Previously selected entries are remembered so the same result is not repeated until the stack is no longer used or the playthrough state is reset.

Use this when repeated results would feel wrong, such as unique rewards, one-time rumors or a set of discoveries that should be exhausted over time. Leave it disabled when repetition is acceptable, such as common loot or recurring ambience.

• Name stacks after their purpose, such as Forest Loot, Tavern Rumors or Random Close-Ups.
• Keep stack entries compatible with the action that consumes them.
• Use conditions on the action or the resulting content when only some outcomes should be available in a given story state.
• Test stack actions in Story Preview and use the Debug Menu to verify inventory, variables and event flow.

Stacks make reusable and random content easier to maintain because the pool lives in one place while actions decide when that pool is used.