campaign-creation

name	campaign-creation
description	Interview-driven D&D 5e (2014) campaign setup. Trigger when the player wants to start a new campaign, world, setting, or adventure. Establishes premise, setting, tone, length expectations, starting region, factions, and house rules; creates the campaigns/<slug>/ directory tree with campaign.md, state.md, and seed world files.

Campaign Creation

Set up a new campaign. Conduct as a structured interview. Per AGENTS.md, batch structured pick-from-N choices via AskUserQuestion (up to 4 questions per call, 2–4 curated options each). Reasonable batches here: setting + tone + length-cap + pacing in one call, then difficulty + sourcebook-scope + house-rules toggles in another. Reserve plain-prose questions for genuinely open-ended steps (premise text, primary antagonist, themes). Default to all official 5e (2014) sources but let the player constrain the world's scope (e.g., "PHB only", "no firearms", "low magic"). The player may say "surprise me" at any step — make a sensible choice and explain it briefly.

0. Prerequisites

• Confirm mise is available: mise --version.
• Confirm dice work: mise run roll -- 1d20.

1. Name & Slug

Ask the player for a campaign name. Derive a slug (lowercase, hyphenated, ASCII). Confirm the slug.

Reject if campaigns/<slug>/ already exists — ask for a different name or whether to load the existing one.

2. Setting

Ask which setting:

• Forgotten Realms
• Eberron
• Ravenloft / domains of dread
• Wildemount / Exandria
• Theros, Strixhaven, Spelljammer, Planescape, Dragonlance (any official setting)
• Custom homebrew (interview-derived)

If homebrew, capture: world name, dominant races/cultures, magic prevalence, technology level, cosmology basics.

3. Tone & Length

• Tone: heroic / gritty / dark / horror / comedic / political-intrigue. The player can blend.
• Length: one-shot (1 session), short arc (levels 1–5), mid (1–10), full (1–20).
• Pacing: milestone leveling vs. XP. Default milestone for solo play unless the player picks XP.

4. Themes & Content Scope

• Core themes the player wants explored (e.g., redemption, lost civilizations, war, cosmic horror).
• Content lines: anything the player wants off the table (specific topics, body horror, etc.). Record these and respect them throughout play.
• Sourcebook scope: all official by default; restrict if the player asks.

5. Starting Region

Capture for world/regions.md:

• Region name and brief description (geography, climate, dominant culture).
• Starting location (settlement / dungeon / wilderness camp): name, size, ruling power, vibe.
• 3–5 named landmarks or points of interest in walking distance.

6. Premise & Opening Hook

• One-paragraph premise (the elevator pitch).
• The opening hook: how the player character is drawn in (job offer, personal stakes, urgent crisis, mystery).
• The long arc: what success at level 20 (or the campaign's cap) looks like. Vague is fine; this is a north star, not a contract.
• The primary antagonist or opposing force (can be unknown to the player at start; record openly in campaign.md since this is your DM notes).

7. Factions

Capture 2–4 factions for world/factions.md. For each:

• Name.
• Purpose / what they want.
• Methods (open / covert / mercantile / militant).
• Default attitude toward the PC: friendly, neutral, suspicious, hostile.
• 1–2 named NPCs the player might meet.

8. Difficulty & House Rules

Difficulty

Pick one — affects encounter tuning and DM leniency throughout the campaign:

• Easy — encounter-build biases easy/medium; the DM softens consequences when the fiction allows.
• Standard — PHB defaults; encounter-build picks freely.
• Hard — encounter-build biases hard/deadly; resources are scarcer, consequences land.
• Hardcore — permadeath. Resurrection magic (Revivify, Raise Dead, Resurrection, True Resurrection, Reincarnate, Wish-as-revive) is unavailable for the PC. Three failed death saves ends the character permanently — no narrative rescue, no retcon. Encounter-build biases hard/deadly.

Hardcore lock — one-way boundary:

• A campaign that starts outside Hardcore can never enter Hardcore. The choice at creation closes that door for the life of the campaign.
• A campaign that starts in Hardcore stays in Hardcore. It cannot be downgraded.
• Among easy / standard / hard the player may move freely mid-campaign by editing campaign.md. The Started in Hardcore field is immutable and is what enforces the boundary.

Before recording Hardcore at creation, read the permadeath consequences back to the player verbatim and require explicit confirmation. Record both Difficulty and Started in Hardcore on campaign.md.

House Rules

Confirm or override defaults. Record on campaign.md:

• Critical hits: max die + roll (PHB default) vs. doubled dice vs. brutal critical.
• Resting: PHB (short = 1hr, long = 8hr) vs. gritty realism (short = 8hr, long = 7 days) vs. heroic (short = 5min, long = 1hr).
• Death saves: standard PHB.
• Inspiration: standard PHB or homebrew variant.
• Multiclassing & feats: allowed (default) or not.
• Optional rules from DMG/Tasha's: flanking, healing surges, etc. — opt in case-by-case.
• Origin rules: PHB defaults vs. Tasha's "Customizing Your Origin".

9. Persist

Create the directory tree and files:

campaigns/<slug>/
  campaign.md
  state.md
  characters/
  encounters/
  quests/
  sessions/
  world/
    regions.md
    factions.md

Use the templates below. Fill in everything captured during the interview.

Every file written must follow the File Conventions in AGENTS.md (final newline, LF, UTF-8, no trailing whitespace).

10. Confirm & onboard a character

Read back a tight summary: setting, tone, difficulty (call out Hardcore explicitly if selected, including the lock), premise, starting region, factions, the headline house rules. Ask if the player wants to adjust anything. Apply edits and save.

Before ending the skill, call AskUserQuestion (one question, two options) so the player can pick how to bring a character into the new campaign:

• Create a new character — run /character-creation against this campaign.
• Import an existing character — run /port-character to bring a PC over from another campaign.

The auto-provided "Other" entry is the player's escape hatch (defer / something else). Do not enumerate these choices in prose — AskUserQuestion already covers that surface. Hand off into the chosen skill immediately on selection; on "Other", honor whatever the player wrote in.

---

Templates

campaign.md

# {{Campaign Name}}

- **Slug:** {{slug}}
- **Setting:** {{setting}}
- **Tone:** {{tone}}
- **Length / Cap:** {{length}}
- **Pacing:** {{milestone | xp}}
- **Difficulty:** {{easy | standard | hard | hardcore}}
- **Started in Hardcore:** {{yes | no}}
- **Created:** {{ISO date}}
- **Source rules:** D&D 5e (2014)
- **Sourcebook scope:** {{all official | restricted to ...}}

> **Difficulty rule.** If **Started in Hardcore** is `yes`, difficulty is permanently Hardcore — permadeath, no resurrection magic, three failed death saves ends the character. If **Started in Hardcore** is `no`, difficulty may shift among easy / standard / hard during play (edit this file), but Hardcore can never be entered later.

## Premise

{{one-paragraph premise}}

## Opening Hook

{{how the PC is drawn in}}

## Long Arc

{{what success at level cap looks like}}

## Primary Antagonist / Opposing Force

{{antagonist notes — DM-only context}}

## Themes

- {{theme}}
- ...

## Content Lines

- Off the table: {{topics}}

## House Rules

- **Critical hits:** ...
- **Resting:** ...
- **Death saves:** ...
- **Inspiration:** ...
- **Multiclassing / feats:** ...
- **Origin rules:** ...
- **Optional rules in play:** ...

## Open Threads

(populated during play)

state.md

# Campaign State — {{Campaign Name}}

- **Active character:** null
- **Location:** {{starting location}}
- **In-game date:** {{starting date or null}}
- **Active quests:** []
- **Last session:** null
- **Last session status:** closed
- **Last session real-world date:** null
- **Where we left off:** null

world/regions.md

# Regions

## {{Starting Region Name}}

{{description: geography, climate, culture}}

### {{Starting Location}}

- **Type:** {{settlement | dungeon | wilderness camp}}
- **Size / population:** ...
- **Ruling power:** ...
- **Vibe:** ...

### Landmarks

- **{{name}}** — {{one-line description}}
- ...

world/factions.md

# Factions

## {{Faction Name}}

- **Purpose:** ...
- **Methods:** ...
- **Attitude toward PC:** {{friendly | neutral | suspicious | hostile}}
- **Notable NPCs:**
  - **{{NPC name}}** — {{role, brief description}}

(repeat per faction)