Scene Shakeups

Scene Shakeups

Scene Shakeups inject random, context-appropriate events into your roleplay to prevent conversations from becoming stale and predictable. When triggered, BlazeTracker makes a separate LLM call to generate scene-appropriate disruption suggestions, picks one at random, and injects it as a mandatory scene direction into the main generation prompt.

How It Works

  1. Before each assistant response, BlazeTracker checks whether a shakeup should trigger
  2. A quadratic probability curve determines the chance: the longer since the last shakeup, the higher the probability
  3. If triggered, a pre-request LLM call generates 10 scene-appropriate suggestions
  4. One suggestion is randomly selected and injected into the prompt as a mandatory scene direction
  5. The main LLM receives the instruction and must incorporate the event into its response

The probability curve uses the formula p(n) = (n / maxMessages)^2, where n is messages since the last shakeup and maxMessages is the configured maximum (default: 20). This means:

Messages Since LastProbability (N=20)
56.25%
1025%
1556.25%
1881%
20100% (guaranteed)

The curve starts low to avoid disrupting scenes that are already interesting, then ramps up as conversations risk becoming stale.

Shakeup Types

The LLM can suggest events from these categories:

TypeDescription
arrivalA new character, creature, or group arrives
departureSomeone leaves unexpectedly or is called away
revelationA secret is revealed or hidden information surfaces
interruptionAn external event interrupts the current interaction
emotional_shiftA character’s emotional state changes dramatically
complicationSomething goes wrong — a plan fails or situation worsens
opportunityAn unexpected chance or opening presents itself
environmentThe environment changes — weather, power, noise
callbackA consequence of an earlier event resurfaces
escalationThe current situation intensifies or stakes are raised

What Context Is Provided

The shakeup generator receives rich context to ensure suggestions are scene-appropriate:

  • Character description and user description from the card/persona
  • Character profiles (positions, moods, physical states) from current projection
  • Relationship data (feelings, wants, secrets, status) between characters
  • Scene state (time, location, climate, tension, props, recent narrative events)
  • World info / lorebook entries (if enabled)
  • Recent messages from the conversation

This ensures suggestions respect the time of day, setting, character personalities, established relationships, and world rules.

Safety Guardrails

The shakeup prompt includes extensive guardrails to prevent problematic suggestions:

  • Time-appropriate: No work calls at midnight, no deliveries at 2 AM
  • Setting-consistent: No helicopters in medieval settings, no magic where it’s forbidden
  • Character-accurate: Shy characters don’t suddenly become aggressive; personalities are respected
  • No fabrication: Never invents family members, pets, objects, or history that don’t exist
  • No user character control: Never dictates what the user’s character does, says, or feels
  • Climate-aware: No thunder during clear skies, no casual strolls in blizzards
  • Relationship-consistent: No sudden love confessions between enemies
  • Tone-appropriate: No nuclear bombs in coffee shop scenes

Settings

SettingTypeDefaultDescription
Enable Scene ShakeupsbooleanfalseTurn the feature on or off. Off by default.
Max Messages Between Shakeupsnumber20Messages at which probability reaches 100%. Range: 5-100.

These settings are in the Injection section of BlazeTracker’s settings panel.

Scene Shakeups require a Connection Profile to be configured, since they make a separate LLM call. The same profile used for extraction is used for shakeup generation.

Injection Format

When a shakeup triggers, it’s injected alongside the scene state as a mandatory direction:

[IMPORTANT — Mandatory Scene Direction]
You MUST incorporate the following event into your next response.
This is not optional. The event MUST occur during this response
and be woven naturally into the narrative.

Event: The ex-soldier freezes mid-sentence as a patron drops
a tankard — the crash triggers a flashback to combat.

Write the event as a natural part of the scene — do not announce
it mechanically or break immersion. The event must happen, but
how the characters react should be true to their personalities.
[/IMPORTANT — Mandatory Scene Direction]

Debug Logging

With Debug Logging enabled, BlazeTracker logs shakeup information to the browser console:

  • Roll details: Messages since last shakeup, probability, random roll, whether it triggered
  • All suggestions: The full list of 10 generated suggestions with types and rationales
  • Selected suggestion: Which suggestion was randomly chosen for injection

This is useful for understanding why shakeups trigger (or don’t) and what options were available.