Tabletop Arc

TTRPG Lore Tracking: How to Keep Campaign Canon Coherent for Years

TTRPG lore tracking is the practice of capturing every canonical fact about your tabletop campaign — characters, locations, factions, secrets, and rules — in a structured, evidence-linked record that compounds across sessions. Tabletop Arc is the AI memory layer for tabletop campaigns.

What is TTRPG lore tracking?

TTRPG lore tracking is the practice of capturing canonical facts about your campaign — NPCs, locations, factions, items, quests, and house rules — in a structured, evidence-linked record. Tabletop Arc is the AI memory layer that turns lore tracking from manual note-taking into a living, queryable, evidence-grounded campaign wiki.

What does "tracking lore" actually mean?

A campaign accumulates three kinds of facts: established canon (the Mayor is a vampire), uncertain canon (the Mayor might be a vampire — only one player overheard a rumor), and rejected canon (the Mayor is not a vampire — confirmed in session 7). Lore tracking is the practice of keeping all three in a structured ledger so the GM (and AI tools that operate on the ledger) never confuse one for another.

In Tabletop Arc, every entity carries a confidence level — HIGH (multiple sources or explicit canon), MEDIUM (single confident source), or LOW (rumor or AI inference). Low-confidence facts surface in the GM's continuity report as "to confirm next session" rather than being asserted as canon.

What entity types should be tracked?

A complete TTRPG ledger covers:

  • Characters (PCs): the player characters, their classes, motivations, and relationships.
  • NPCs: every named non-player character, with role, faction, and current state.
  • Locations: towns, dungeons, regions, planes — with parents, descriptions, and notable features.
  • Factions: organizations, their goals, allies, enemies, and territory.
  • Items: notable weapons, magic items, artifacts; current holder and history.
  • Quests: open and closed plot threads.
  • Events: dated occurrences that anchor the campaign timeline.
  • Lore: general world facts (cosmology, religion, history) not tied to a specific entity.
  • Handouts: in-fiction documents shared with the table.
  • Rules / house rules: rulings the GM has made.

How do you keep lore tracking from becoming a chore?

The answer is to make tracking happen as a side effect of play, not as homework after the session. Tabletop Arc handles this by analyzing transcripts: every entity mentioned at the table is automatically proposed for canon, and the GM reviews proposals in batches via the Review queue. The GM never has to remember to type up notes — the table does it for them.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How is lore tracking different from a wiki?
A wiki is the surface. The lore tracker is the structured database underneath. The wiki page about Captain Drake renders from the canonical entity Captain Drake, whose fields include role, affiliation, motivations, evidence segments, and confidence.
What systems are supported?
All of them. Lore tracking is system-agnostic. Tabletop Arc does not parse rules; it captures story and entity facts.
Can players add lore?
Yes. Players can propose entities and facts; the GM approves or rejects them. Player-suggested lore is a first-class source type in the canon ledger.
How do I correct a tracked fact?
Edit the canonical entry. The diff is recorded. Future outputs use the corrected fact; previously generated outputs can be regenerated against the corrected canon.
How do I track house rules?
House rules and rule clarifications are first-class entity types in the ledger. They get their own pages, are searchable, and surface in the wiki next to the world content they affect.
How does evidence linking help during play?
When a player asks "wait, when did we learn that?" the GM can open the entity, click the evidence segment, and replay the exact moment from the transcript. Disputes get resolved in seconds.

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