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Scenes and choices

An adventure can be looked at three ways: as a map, as a form and as one continuous document. All three show the same scenes, and only one sets a destination.

The graph, the inspector and the manuscript: three ways of looking at the same adventure, and the only one that sets a destination.

This chapter is a reference: come back to it when an adventure needs it. If Fatum is new to you, start with the first step of the path: What the engine can do

The graph

Each scene is a card, each destination an arrow. A card's colour and shape state its role: start, hub, shop, combat, character creation, level up, ending. An ending has a distinct, rounder shape, and keeps it even if you repaint it.

Arrows read too: a solid line leads to another scene, a long dash completes the adventure, a short red dash fails it. A padlock on a label marks a choice that is not always visible.

An adventure's graph: eleven scene cards linked by arrows, with the minimap bottom left and the zoom controls bottom right.
Under each title, two numbers count the links coming in and going out. A scene with zero incoming is reached by nobody.

"Rearrange" lays out the whole graph again and replaces the positions you had chosen; "Fit to view" simply makes everything fit on the screen. A card you move stays where you put it, and nothing moves it afterwards.

The scene list

The left panel lists the scenes and is mainly useful for finding your way when there are many. The search covers the title, the text, the tags and the author's marker; the chips above keep only the scenes with a problem: those with no destination, orphans (those nobody reaches) or endings. The graph fades the scenes the list leaves out without hiding them, and "Fit to view" frames the scenes it keeps. The "Neighbourhood" button highlights the selection and the scenes next to it. Chapters group the scenes of the list under headers you can fold: a menu on each header renames the chapter, colours it, moves it or deletes it (its scenes are kept, without a chapter), and "Assign these scenes…" files everything the list shows in one go. A scene's chapter is also chosen in the inspector, under "Organisation". Readers never see the chapters.

The scene list: a search field, the filter chips and eleven rows with their link counters.
"Paths from the start" does not filter: it highlights what the reader can reach and fades the rest.

What the canvas does not do

The graph shows the links without editing them. These five limits are deliberate, and the first is the one everyone tries first.

  • You cannot drag an arrow from one card to another. A destination belongs to a choice, and is set in the inspector. Dropping a card on another creates nothing.
  • You do not write on a card. It shows a title; the text is written in the inspector or in the manuscript.
  • Only one thing is selected at a time. A card, or an arrow.
  • Nothing moves without you. Only a mouse drag, Shift + an arrow key or "Rearrange" moves a card; an arrow key alone only changes the selected scene.
  • The canvas takes no annotations. No sticky notes, no coloured areas. To mark a scene, use its author label or its tags.

The inspector: a scene

Clicking a card opens its form on the right: first the title, the text and the choices leaving it, then the mechanics (the role and the entry effects), and last the organisation, folded by default (the colour, the author tag and the tags). The mechanics change what the engine does; the organisation changes nothing during a run.

A shop scene's inspector: the title, the text editor, the choice leaving it with its destination, then the role and the shop the scene opens.
On a shop or combat scene, an extra block asks which one. Picking the shop is enough: that choice is what gives the scene its role.

"+ Ajouter un choix" creates an empty choice, with no destination. That is a normal working state: it will only appear on the graph once it leads somewhere.

A choice, and its destination

A choice has a text, possibly some rules, and exactly one destination. There are five possibilities.

Destination What happens What it asks for
No destination yet The choice exists but leads nowhere. It does not show on the graph. Nothing. It is the state of a choice being written.
Go to a scene The reader moves on to the indicated scene. This is the most common case. A scene. Endings are not offered here.
Complete the adventure The run ends on the chosen ending, and that ending is added to the endings the reader has discovered. An ending of the success kind.
Failure The run stops on a failure. You write the reason the reader will read. A reason, required. A failure ending, optional.
Stay on the scene The effects apply and the reader reads the same scene again. Handy for searching a place. Nothing. Watch out for loops with no way out.
A choice's inspector: the choice text, the destination selector and the chips summarising its rules.
Clicking an arrow on the graph selects the choice it carries, and the reverse: selecting a choice highlights its arrow.

If the choice carries a dice test, the destination leaves the choice and moves into the outcomes: one per result. That is what makes it impossible to write a test with nowhere to go.

The manuscript

The manuscript shows the same scenes one after another, like a document. It is where you write at length: a scene's text, its choices, then the next scene, without changing screens. Between two scenes, a dashed button inserts a new one at that exact place.

The manuscript order is only a reading order for you. How a run unfolds depends only on the choices and their destinations: moving a scene in the outline changes nothing for the reader.
The manuscript: the numbered plan on the left, and the scenes one after another with their title, text and choices.
Past forty scenes the manuscript opens collapsed; "Tout déplier" stays available at any size.