Director mode

"He took the chair on Tuesday and forgot to leave it. Nobody could open a door until Friday." — Continuity Clerk Vosh Aldenn
Verified

Director mode marks you as the person running the scene, and hands you tools that other admins cannot reach while you hold it.

You need community admin to put yourself in the chair, and clerical admin to put anybody else in it. You also need to be logged in.

What it does

A director is a flag on your session, not a rank. While it is set, StoryForce treats you as the person in charge of the scene. On the shipped server configuration, 4 tools refuse to run for anyone who is not a director: /crawl, /camera, /prepmap and /scene. A second group stays open normally, but shuts to everyone except directors the moment somebody takes the chair.

Anyone can see who currently holds it, and everybody on the server is told when it changes hands.

Taking the chair

/director and /directorschair are the same command.

That line goes to everyone on the server, so there is no quiet way to take the chair. Leaving it is equally public.

Add a player name to put somebody else in or out of the chair. The name must match the player's full name exactly, so wrap a name with a space in quotes. More than one person can direct at once.

/directors lists who holds it. It needs no permission, so anyone can check before they start work.

What locks when you direct

There are two kinds of lock, and a tool can be under either, both or neither.

Always needs a director

These tools refuse to run unless you are in the chair, whether or not anyone else is directing. On the shipped configuration that means the camera, the opening crawl, /prepmap and the scene commands. Without the chair you get this:

Locks only while somebody is directing

These tools work normally when nobody holds the chair, and close to everyone but directors the moment one does. Most story tools sit here. Another admin who tries one during your scene gets this:

3 things are worth knowing about how this behaves:

  • a director passes both locks regardless of admin rank, so an account with no admin bits at all still gets the tool while it holds the chair
  • NPC commands and the entity system are in neither lock on the shipped configuration, so a second admin can keep placing models and spawning NPCs while you direct
  • which tools sit in which group is a server setting

The operator's view of the groups, including how to change them, is in director locks.

The director notes channel

Director notes are a private text channel keyed by a password. Anyone logged in can join, so this is not the same thing as being a director and does not require the chair.

Everyone who types the same password is on the same channel, and the channel sees a join line each time somebody arrives. Give the password to your crew and nobody else. Once you are on it, team chat and /say_director both go to the channel instead of the room.

Leave with /directornotes none, which prints DirectorNotes cleared and tells the rest of the channel you have gone. Typing a different password switches channels rather than joining two.

Things to note

  • Forgetting to leave the chair leaves the scene locks on. StoryForce counts any connected director, so one person who never ran /director false keeps every scene-locked tool shut for other admins indefinitely. Run /directors when a tool refuses for no obvious reason.
  • Director mode survives a map change by default. You keep the chair, and the locks carry over to the next map without any announcement.
  • /npc and /llm sit in neither lock. Both refuse on admin rank alone, and say so with "Insufficient permissions", whether or not anybody is directing.
  • The notes channel is not the chair. Joining it grants no tools, and taking the chair does not put you on it.
  • The channel has no owner and no way to remove a member. Anyone logged in who types the password is on it. To shed an eavesdropper, agree a new password with your crew and switch.
  • /directors shows the flag, not the workload. Somebody listed there is not necessarily doing anything.

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