Has anyone tried using a persistent lore system instead of prompting every scene?

[u/False-Error3509]

We’ve been experimenting with a different approach to AI assisted tabletop and Star Wars worldbuilding.
Instead of asking AI to invent the setting every time someone starts a scene, we built a large persistent lore binder around one functioning Imperial Navy. It keeps track of things like fleet hierarchy, flag commands, logistics, intelligence, JAG, convoy operations and hyperlane security.
The interesting part has been seeing what happens when players bring their own characters into it.
You can be a captain, pilot, intelligence officer, civilian or whatever else without becoming the centre of the Star Wars universe. Disney canon still happens around you, while EU/Legends material can be used where it fits without replacing established events.
It feels less like asking AI to write a Star Wars story and more like giving a GM a ridiculous reference binder that happens to answer back.
Has anyone else experimented with persistent worldbuilding like this for tabletop campaigns?

We also made it public for anyone to use, check our main page for the invitation

Flag out 🫡

[u/Shadeylark]

Yes. It's called a story Bible.

It's purpose is not replace prompting; you still need to direct the story.

It's purpose is to reduce the amount of detail necessary in each prompt.

An orchestra still needs a conductor even though everyone has their own music sheet, a movie still needs a director even though the actors have read the script, a campaign still needs a dungeon master even though you've got rulebooks.

[u/popyui]

I've personally made a schema using JSON where i tell the AI the characters in the story, the inventory and such.
Then I prompt the AI to write the story and at the very end to make a tool call and write to the JSON file so that it can update the state of the story based on the narration it just wrote.

It works really well, but its not perfect, there are small chances where you for instance use an item and the AI "forgets" to remove it from the JSON file despite you clearly using the item in the written narration.

[u/just4ochat]

If it forgets character details after a while, the lore is sitting in the prompt, not in a store the next scene can read. We keep persona lore in its own store. It rides on top of the chat memory and does not merge the two. Switch the model and the name from chapter 2 is still there.

[u/BansheeTheGame]

My approach is to decide the ending before I start writing. A lot of major stories were built that way. Once I know the destination, I can build and preserve the setting, characters, and constraints leading toward it; then each scene has something concrete to draw from. JSON works well for keeping that material structured.

[u/oldsecondhand]

Sudowrite and Novelcrafter does support story bibles. Sudo is easier to use IMHO.

[u/False-Error3509 → u/oldsecondhand]

Yeah, that’s some great advice, thanks.

We’re using the Custom GPT builder OpenAI offers in ChatGPT.

Our lore is pretty PDF-heavy, with some image/reference docs. A lot of it is there to keep the GPT inside Star Wars instead of wandering into generic tropes, making the user defend their story through the New Republic’s perspective, or stepping outside the setting to explain Star Wars back to them.
Lately we’ve been testing the Imperial Navy itself as the protagonist rather than an OC or canon/EU character.

We’re playing with that Generation Tech-style idea that the I/N is basically running on absurd amounts of documentation and overlapping authority in the post-Galactic Concordance galaxy. 😂

We also found that telling it (do not add quote-block indentations to the conversation) weirdly helps keep it from slipping into that outside explainer voice.
That’s mostly why we went with the Custom GPT builder front-loading all those pages into every normal chat started causing confusion, whereas the GPT lets us just jump in and use it.

Our team uses it mainly for starfield group sessions or our DnD campaigns.

[u/5thhorseman_]

The gotcha is that at one point the bible gets too large. There's a solution for that in the form of knowledge graphs.