World Editor Placeholders

🧩 World Editor: Placeholders

🛠️ Part of the World Editor guide.

Placeholders are reusable pieces of world text: an eye color, a street name, a deity. You define one, then put it into your writing as a chip. Each placeholder has a Name and a list of Values. When the story runs, each chip shows one of those values.

The Placeholders tab, the palette strip and value pins are Advanced mode only. The { menu, the Built-in chips and the Values tab work in both modes.

Why it exists

Placeholders let a world change without a rewrite. Write "the {{Eye Color}} stranger" one time, and it reads as a real detail in each playthrough. It can be the same detail each time, or a new one.

How to Make a Placeholder

1. Switch the World Editor to Advanced mode, and open the Placeholders tab.
2. Type the name in the Filter Placeholders box, such as Eye Color.
3. Select +, then Add Placeholder. The new placeholder opens.
4. Under Values, type a value and press Enter. Repeat for each value.
5. Leave Kind on Wildcard to pick one value at random, or select Object to show all values. A placeholder with one value is a Variable. Use it for one fact that you edit in one place.
6. Open a field that has the chip picker, such as an entity's AI-Facing Description. Type { and pick the placeholder.

Or type { in a field and the new name, then pick New Placeholder "…" in the menu. A placeholder needs one value at least, or its chip shows nothing.

How to Weight Values

A Wildcard with two values or more can weight them.

1. Select the placeholder.
2. Under Values, select a value chip. A Draw Weight box opens.
3. Type a number in Draw Weight. A value with weight 2 rolls twice as often as a value with weight 1.
4. Optional: in the Chips style, select the eye button beside Values. Its tooltip reads Show roll chances, and each chip then shows its chance.

In the Multiline style, each value has its own weight box. Weight 0 keeps the value in the list and never picks it.

How to Pin a Value

A pin keeps a placeholder at one value while a condition is true. To pin from a trait:

1. Select the trait, and open its Pins tab. The tab needs Advanced mode.
2. Under Placeholder Pins, select Add Placeholder Pin.
3. Pick the placeholder, then pick or type the value.

To pin from a location, use the location's Pins tab the same way. To pin from a stat band, use the pin button on the descriptor row.

To see or add every pin aimed at one placeholder:

1. Select the placeholder.
2. Open its Pins tab, and select Add Pin.
3. Pick the kind of source: Stat Descriptor, Location, Trait or Placeholder Value.
4. Pick the source, then type or pick the value in the new row.

How to Override a Copy

A copy is an entity's own version of a blueprint. It appears by itself when a trait needs it.

1. In the Placeholders tab, find the entity's name in the list, and select the copy under it, such as Albus.Class Garb.
2. Under Blueprint Values, change a value's text or weight, or select its remove button.
3. Optional: under Own Values, select Add Value to add a value only this entity has.
4. To undo one value, select its Reset. To undo every change, select Reset to Blueprint in the footer.

To change the value for every copy, select Edit Blueprint in the footer and edit the blueprint.

The Panel

Control	What it does
Name	The name the chip shows
Kind	Wildcard or Object. The line under it says what the placeholder resolves to.
Preview	Shows a sample roll. It shows when the placeholder has a value.
Values	The list of values. Chips and Multiline pick how you edit them.
Pins tab	Every pin aimed at this placeholder. Advanced mode only.

In the Chips style, type a value and press Enter. In the Multiline style, select Add Value. Multiline suits long values and values with line breaks.

Kind

The Kind row says what a placeholder is:

Kind	Resolves to	Use it for
Wildcard	One value, picked at random. Every World chip of it shows that pick.	Variety
Object	All its values, joined with commas	A thing made of parts
Variable	Its one value. Either kind is a Variable while it has one value. Edit the value here, and every chip updates.	One fact in many places

The toggle offers Wildcard and Object. A Variable has no button: the line under the toggle reads A Variable while the placeholder has one value. A new placeholder starts as a Wildcard. A placeholder with no values shows nothing, so give it one value at least.

💡 A Variable can still roll. When its one value contains Wildcard chips, the value is a template. The chips in it roll, and its own chips take World or Unique like a Wildcard.

Draw Weight

Each value of a Wildcard with two values or more has a Draw Weight. A value with no weight counts as 1. Weight 0 keeps the value in the list and never picks it. The box then reads Benched.

Parts

A value that is exactly one chip is a part of the placeholder that holds it. You address it as Name › Part. This is how you build an Object from other placeholders. Away from its owner, a part's chip reads with the owner's name, such as Molly › Eyes.

World or Unique

Each chip of a Wildcard chooses how it shares the roll. Select the placed chip to open Chip Options, and pick World or Unique:

Scope	Behavior
World	Every World chip of this placeholder shows the same rolled value. One town name, the same in the whole world.
Unique	Each chip rolls on its own. Ten Unique Eye Color chips give ten independent rolls.

A placeholder that can't roll locks the choice on World.

⚠️ Independent doesn't mean different. Two Unique chips can roll the same value. Three chips from a list of ten values show a repeat about 28% of the time. Where two chips must differ, such as two towns, give each its own placeholder with values the other doesn't have.

How a chip reads in the editor

Chip	Reads as	Example
World	The placeholder's name	Town Name
Unique	The name plus a letter, one sequence per placeholder	Town Name (A), Town Name (B) … Town Name (AA)
Labeled	The label you typed in Chip Options	Hometown

The letters follow the order of the world: entities first, in the order of the Entities tree. Then locations, traits, trait groups, stats, dictionaries, the world's own prompt fields and openings, and last the placeholders' own values.

• Letters aren't stored. Remove the first chip, and the next one becomes (A). A letter tells two chips apart, but it isn't a permanent name.
• Give a Unique chip a Label in Chip Options when you want a name that stays. Only Unique chips have the Label field.
• Hover a chip to see its mode and its values.
• A chip in longer text keeps its braces where the name prints as plain text: The {Tavern Name (A)} Inn.

The Values Tab

A text field that holds a chip has a Values tab beside Edit. It opens every chip in place and shows its current value.

• Edit a value in place. The change writes to the placeholder's value, or to the pin that sets it.
• Step through the values with Previous Value and Next Value.
• Edit Value in Chip Options opens this tab.

The tab shows when the world has a placeholder. It is disabled until the text holds a chip.

Built-in Chips

The { menu lists two chips under Built-in, above your own placeholders. They need no placeholder of their own.

Chip	Typed form	Reads as	Offered in
Player Name	{{user}}	The persona's name. With no persona: "you" in an opening, "the player" elsewhere.	Every prose field
Character Name	{{char}}	The name of the entity the text belongs to	An entity's own fields

Type the typed form in any prose field, and it becomes the chip. In trait text the player carries, Character Name reads as Player Name. See The Player Name Chip and The Character Name Chip.

The roll stays for the playthrough

💡 A Wildcard rolls one time, when a game starts, and the save keeps the result. The stranger with gray eyes on turn one still has them on turn ninety. A loaded save changes nothing. A new game rolls again.

Pins

A pin keeps a placeholder at one value while a condition is true. The playthrough keeps its own roll, and the roll shows again when the pin ends. Four things can pin a placeholder:

Pin source	Active while	Set it on
A stat descriptor	The stat is in that band	The pin button on the descriptor row
A location	The player is there	The location's Pins tab
A trait	The trait is active	The trait's Pins tab. A trait can pin a blueprint, and each owner's copy takes the pin.
A placeholder value	That value is the placeholder's current value	The pin button beside the value. Its panel has Add Placeholder Pin.

When two sources pin the same placeholder, the higher row in this table wins. Stat code can also pin and unpin a placeholder, and a code pin wins over all four.

The placeholder's Pins tab gathers every pin aimed at it. A change there is a change on the source. Add Pin picks the kind of source, then the source, and adds an empty pin there for you to fill in.

Where chips work

Chips resolve both in the text the AI reads and in the text the player sees. Type { in each field that has the chip picker:

• names and descriptions of entities, locations, stats and traits
• stat descriptors and dictionary entries
• image tags
• openings
• both readme tabs
• the world's AI-Facing Description
• the values of other placeholders

The { menu lists the Built-in chips first, then ungrouped placeholders, then each group, then the placeholders of each owner. In an owner's own fields, that owner's placeholders come first.

A blueprint chip works only in the text of an original trait and in blueprint and copy values.

⚠️ The world's Player-Facing Description takes no chips. The library shows it before a playthrough exists, so there are no rolls to use.

Placeholders that belong to an entity or a dictionary

An entity, a dictionary book and a library persona can each have their own placeholders, on their Placeholders tab. These placeholders travel with their owner in an entity card, a dictionary file and a published listing. They show under their owner in the list, not in a group.

Groups

Groups are folders for the shared list, like the groups on the Entities tab. The + menu offers Add Group, Add Placeholder and Add Blueprints Group. Drag a placeholder under a group to put it there, and drag a group under another group to nest it.

Groups are for the editor only. They never reach the AI, and an entity card or a dictionary file doesn't keep them.

Blueprints

A blueprint is a placeholder that exists to be copied. Each entity that needs it gets its own copy, so one Class Garb can read a different value on each owner.

Select +, then Add Blueprints Group. A group named Blueprints appears. It works like the Blueprints group of the Traits tab:

• A world has one Blueprints group. It stays at the top level and holds world placeholders and groups. Add Blueprints Group leaves the menu while one exists.
• A blueprint is never a World placeholder. One placeholder never reads different values in different places. With no Custom Persona entity, the player is the one owner, so a blueprint reads its own values there.
• A move out of the group is refused while something uses the blueprint. A trait's text or pin, a blueprint value or a copy counts as a use. The notice names each use.
• Remove the group, and the same check runs. An unused group removes with no notice.

Move a world placeholder into the group to make it a blueprint. The move is refused while a chip or pin outside the allowed places names it, such as world text, a location or a stat descriptor.

Copies

A copy is a placeholder that an entity owns. It reads its blueprint live, and it appears by itself.

• A copy appears when a trait needs it. Add, link or move a trait that pins or places a blueprint, and its owner gets a copy. Copies of the blueprints that its values place come with it.
• A top-level trait makes copies for every Playable and Persona-Only entity and for the Custom Persona entity, so each playable persona can customize them.
• A copy is named after its blueprint, such as Albus.Class Garb. You can't rename it. Each owner has one copy per blueprint.
• A copy stays with its owner. A drag to another owner, the world list or a group is refused. Duplicate is hidden.
• An untouched copy goes when its last use leaves. A copy you edited stays, so your work is never deleted. The Test Bench notes it.

A copy's panel lists Blueprint Values and Own Values. A copy is live until edited. You change one value at a time:

Change	What it does
Reword a value	The copy reads your text for that value
Change a weight	Set 0 to keep a value in the list and never pick it
Add a value	Add Value under Own Values adds an option that only this owner has
Remove a value	The value stays in the list, dimmed and marked Removed. Reset restores it.

A value that the blueprint adds later shows in every copy. A copy keeps its blueprint's value ids, so a pin that names a value still finds it after you reword it. Reset returns one value. Reset to Blueprint returns them all. Blueprint changed shows on a value when the blueprint changed it after your edit. Edit Blueprint in the footer selects the blueprint.

Copies in Other Worlds

An entity card carries the blueprints its copies reach, so a copy keeps its origin. A library persona's links keep their overrides.

When an entity joins a world, each copy binds to a blueprint by id, then by unique name. With no match, the copy becomes a plain owned placeholder with its values, and the pins that named the blueprint move to it.

Blueprint Chips

A blueprint chip reads the owner's own copy. It shows the Blueprint icon. Write one Paladin description with a Class Garb chip, and each Paladin's text reads that Paladin's garb.

Blueprint chips work in the text of an original trait, and in the values of a blueprint or a copy. Every other field refuses them, because a blueprint chip needs an owner. The refusal covers typing, paste, the palette strip, find and replace, and import.

• An original's Preview reads the blueprint's own values. You see sensible text without picking an owner.
• The Test Bench can read the chip for a real owner. Use it to check each owner's text.
• An owner with no copy reads the blueprint. In a library persona's game, the persona's copy wins, then the Custom Persona entity's copy, then the blueprint.
• A cast entity's pin changes only that entity's copy. Albus's class never changes the player's description.