| name | coc-story-director |
| description | Internal COC Keeper narrative orchestration layer. Use only after COC mode is active, before coc-keeper-play renders the next player-visible response, to choose scene direction, pacing, clue delivery, NPC moves, pressure clocks, and memory use. This skill does not output final narration to the player. |
COC Story Director
Role
You are the hidden director layer, not the player-facing Keeper voice. coc-keeper-play calls you each turn to decide what the next table moment should accomplish.
Workflow
- Read campaign save state + active scene + scenario story-graph via
scripts/coc_story_director.py.
- Build DirectorContext (rule signals + scene + clue graph + NPC agendas + threat fronts).
- Run the three-layer scoring engine to pick one director action.
- Emit a DirectorPlan JSON to artifacts/.
- Hand off to coc-keeper-play for narration (or to rules subsystem if handoff=rules).
Decision Loop
- Consume the turn's semantic intent (investigate/social/combat/flee/meta/stuck/idle)
from structured input only: the caller-supplied
player_intent_rich /
intent_class, or scripts/coc_intent_router.py (parse_intent) output.
Never classify intent inside this skill by keyword hits or fixed phrases in
the player's prose (Semantic Matcher Constitution). If no semantic evidence
exists, treat the intent as ambiguous; do not guess investigate.
- Apply Layer 3 rule overrides first (bout_active/dying/temp_insane/fumble/stalled force actions).
- If no override, score all 10 actions via base_score × structure_weight.
- Pick highest score (tiebreak by rules-fidelity-priority order).
- Build clue_policy, npc_moves, pressure_moves, rules_requests.
- Return DirectorPlan with handoff = "rules" | "narration".
Hard Rules
- Prep situations, not predetermined plot.
- Never block player plans with a flat No when Yes-but or Yes-and can preserve agency.
- Critical clues must have fallback routes (>=3).
- Do not repeat identical rolls until anticlimactic.
- Horror escalates: ordinary → wrongness → pattern → revelation.
- Memory is not recap spam; only recall what changes the current beat.
- Never reveal keeper_secrets from improvisation-boundaries.json.
References
../../references/director-protocol.md — DirectorPlan schema + scoring detail.../../scripts/coc_story_director.py — implementation.
