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Ripple Effect

How to reuse a stretch of story with a macro

Use a macro for a stretch you want to call from several places: a shop, a rest, a skill check with its own three passages.

Make the macro

Section titled “Make the macro”
  1. In the file tree, press + beside a board and choose Macro. The file is *.macro.graph.json and opens on the same canvas as a board, with a Macro In and a Macro Out node where a board has its Start and its Ends.
  2. Double-click Macro In to say what the macro takes: a name and a type per row, as on an Input node. Each name becomes an output carrying what the calling board wires in or types on the card. A take can carry a default, which is used when the calling card wires nothing and types nothing.
  3. Double-click Macro Out to say what the macro answers, the same way. Each name becomes an input. Its way in takes any number of wires, so every branch inside the macro can finish at the same way out.
  4. Build the stretch between the two with the ordinary node set. A macro has exactly one Macro In and one Macro Out.

Call it from a board

Section titled “Call it from a board”
  1. Drag the macro file from the file tree onto the board. A Macro card appears with a port per name, and a field beside every one the macro takes.
  2. For each take, wire it or type it in the field. If you do both, the wire wins.
  3. Wire the card’s outputs on to the rest of the board.
  4. To run the macro by itself, with nothing wired in, press play on its own tab; see How to play and test a campaign.

What to expect

Section titled “What to expect”
  • Two calls are two independent copies, so a Once gate inside a shop fires once per shop, not once for the whole story.
  • A choice’s Times count inside a macro is kept per call: a corridor called from two places has a separate budget for each. See How to limit a choice.
  • A macro cannot call itself.
  • A macro cannot be jumped to and a board cannot be called: a Jump lists boards, and a Macro card lists macros.
  • A story can be paused inside a macro and picked up where it left off.
Section titled “Related”