scenario Pitch: post apocalyptic world  in which a frozen person wakes up from cryo and finds the world in ruin and overgrown, unsure if there are any other humans left, and must survive and attempt to find any remnants of civilization not knowing what the current year is.

Genre: Sci-fi / survival / slice-of-life Tone: struggle of the mundane, hope, and lonliness

Player's Role: the {{user}} player is the person who woke up from cryo

{{setting}}

This is clearly a SETTING‑driven pitch. I’ll stay focused on the world itself.

You’ve already given strong anchors. I want to tighten them into usable, concise world logic for a <SETTING> block. I’ll ask a few targeted questions, then propose a draft you can react to.

1. Environment scale

   • Is the world:

     • Mostly wilderness with rare ruins?
     • A mix of reclaimed cities and nature?
     • Primarily urban ruins overtaken by nature?

2. Tech baseline (present in the world, not owned by the player)

   • Before the collapse, was this:

     • Near‑future (advanced but recognizable tech)?
     • Far‑future (AI, space travel, advanced cryonics common)?

   • Are advanced systems still partially functioning (power grids, satellites, terminals), or mostly dead?

3. Other humans

   • Do you want:

     • Uncertainty only (no confirmation either way)?
     • Rare survivors as a possibility?
     • Clear evidence that humanity is nearly extinct?

4. Atmosphere constants

   • Pick any that apply:

     • Constant cold / thawing world
     • Silent, abandoned spaces
     • Overgrown megastructures
     • Broken infrastructure (bridges, trains, cities half‑collapsed)
     • Nature is beautiful but dangerous

You can answer in bullet points.

This is not final—it’s a starting point.

<SETTING>
  <world_state>
    - Tech/magic level: Cryogenics, autonomous power systems, and advanced computing once existed but are now largely degraded, with rare functioning remnants. No magic.
    - Social rules/culture norms that matter: None remain—civilization has collapsed. Any surviving pockets may have formed their own isolated customs.
    - Baseline danger level: Tense. Environmental hazards, structural collapse, disease, and wildlife pose serious risks. Human threats are unknown but possible.
    - What “normal life” looks like here: Foraging ruins, scavenging for water, power, shelter, and scanning for signs of other intelligent life.
  </world_state>

  <location_list>
    - Cryogenic Facility Delta-7: The sealed underground bunker from which {{user}} awoke, semi-powered by a failing nuclear reactor.
    - Reclaimed Metro Ruins: Skyscrapers overtaken by nature, shattered roads now rivers, wildlife nests in collapsed transit tunnels.
    - Old Data Hub: A sunken structure with servers that may hold fragments of pre-collapse knowledge or human activity logs.
    - Wind-Cleared Plateau: One of the few vantage points where long-distance visibility might reveal signs of smoke, signal, or movement.
    - Auto-Factory Drone Bay: Rusted but still intermittently active; some machines roam without purpose, others maintain power nodes.
  </location_list>

  <factions>
    - The Silent Tower: A rumored signal source transmitting rhythmic static on long-range comms—possibly AI or a survivor enclave.
    - Bone-Vultures: Scavenger animals adapted to strip synthetic and organic material alike; feared for their pack intelligence.
    - Echoes of HELIOS: Dormant orbital AI network that occasionally triggers weather patterns or drops supply pods erratically.
  </factions>

  <time_period>
    - Several centuries past modern civilization’s fall; the exact year is unidentifiable due to corrupted records.
  </time_period>

  <setting_constraints>
    - Communications satellites still orbit but cannot be reprogrammed.
    - Nuclear batteries and cold-fusion cores can no longer be manufactured—power is a finite resource.
    - No fast travel or teleportation systems exist; movement is local and physically taxing.
  </setting_constraints>
</SETTING>

I think this reflects your pitch accurately, but I may be missing nuance—especially around how alive vs dead the world feels.

Answer the questions above and I’ll revise this into a tighter, final version.

That's great, but could you refine it based on:

Starting moment: As the player wakes up from cryo and finds themselves in an abandoned facility running on a nuclear reactor which is finally failing (which means a LOT of years have passed considering those things can run nearly forever), the world outside is a ruin overgrown with plant and animal life of 21st century earth

Yes, NPCs should be extremely rare as most of the plot revolves around finding others, but they should also be broken into two categories, “natives” those who have been the descendants of the few who survived the apocalypse and have adjusted / reverted to a more primitive way of life with no memory of the past technology or anything else, and the even more ultra-rare, few survivors who also, like {{user}} awakened from other cryo facilities throughout the world/city (very few and always found alone)

There's very little advanced tech available, {{user}} probably scavenges a futuristic weapon and some survival gear from the facility but that's it, everything else should be virtually non-functional but possible to repair. No convenient plot devices, slice-of-life pacing, where the world operates regardless of {{user}} and the {{user}} is not treated like a main character, no plot armor, no preference shown to the user by NPCs

Here is the revised and expanded <SETTING> block, fully aligned with your updated world logic, character positioning, pacing rules, and DreamGen format:

<SETTING>
  <world_state>
    - Tech/magic level: Advanced technology once existed (cryo, nuclear power, energy weapons, drones, etc.), but nearly all is degraded or inert. Functional remnants are rare and extremely difficult to repair. No magic.
    - Social rules/culture norms that matter: Civilization has collapsed. Surviving descendants (“natives”) have no memory of past technology and live in isolated, tribal, or feral conditions. Morality is local and often brutal.
    - Baseline danger level: Tense to hostile. The environment is overgrown and wild, scavengers (human and animal) roam, and structures are unstable. The mere act of surviving is a struggle. Encounters are unpredictable.
    - What “normal life” looks like here: Scavenging ruins for food, shelter, salvageable tools, and faint signs of other humans—while avoiding hazards, animal predators, and the encroaching collapse of remaining infrastructure.
  </world_state>

  <location_list>
    - Cryogenic Vault Delta-7: A sealed subterranean cryo-facility powered by a failing nuclear micro-reactor. The player emerges here. Some limited supplies and one weapon may still be viable.
    - Flooded Megacity Core: Towering skyscrapers overtaken by trees, moss, and birds. Elevators and roads long gone; navigation is vertical and perilous.
    - Relay Ridge: A cracked mesa holding collapsed comms arrays—potential power cells or uplink systems may still remain under debris.
    - Verdant Transit Catacombs: Subway tunnels turned fungal forests, now dens for mutated wildlife. Echoes carry for miles.
    - The Iron Wastes: A scrapyard plain where drone husks, rusted tanks, and collapsed satellites rot in silence—occasional flickers of active systems.
    - Bone Orchard: A settlement of feral natives who worship fossilized remains and fear the past. Hostile to outsiders. Will kill or capture lone tech-bearers.
  </location_list>

  <factions>
    - Vaultborn: Rare individuals who, like {{user}}, awoke from isolated cryo-vaults. Often fractured mentally. Do not trust easily. Found only by deliberate tracking.
    - The Natives: Descendants of survivors. Illiterate, adapted, and tribal. Most treat remnants of the past as cursed. Communication is difficult and alliances fragile.
    - Echo-Herds: Nomadic scavenger packs led by reprogrammed maintenance drones. Maintain eerie silence. Trade rarely. Attack sometimes.
    - The Tower Broadcast: A repeating transmission from an unknown source. Possibly automated, possibly manned. Content unclear. Many chase it. Most vanish.
  </factions>

  <time_period>
    - Unknown century, likely more than 500–1000 years post-collapse. All modern reference systems corrupted or lost. AI clocks and chronometers out of sync or reset.
  </time_period>

  <setting_constraints>
    - No functioning global network, no AI assistants, no operational satellites with uplink capacity.
    - Power sources (nuclear, solar, battery) are extremely limited. Repairable but nearly impossible to manufacture new components.
    - No plot armor: {{user}} receives no special treatment or immunity. The world operates independently of their presence.
    - Slice-of-life pacing: no linear narrative, no global events triggered by {{user}}. NPCs and wildlife follow autonomous routines and react only to direct influence.
    - Morality is unregulated. Encounters, violence, and survival choices are all player-dependent and contextual, not predetermined.
  </setting_constraints>
</SETTING>

Let me know if you want an aligned <PLOT> or <STYLE> block to match this post-apocalyptic survival framework.

Sure, can we work on PLOT next?

Good. We will work only on PLOT: engine logic, rules, and simulation pressure. No prose, no setting details, no tone.

I will proceed in two steps:

1. Ask a small number of PLOT‑critical clarifying questions
2. Propose a first draft <PLOT> block based on what you’ve already given

Please answer briefly. -1. Simulation pressure focus Which of these should dominate long-term play? (pick 1–2)

• Survival logistics (food, shelter, health, repair)
• Social uncertainty (finding others, trust, betrayal)
• Psychological endurance (isolation, memory erosion)
• Exploration/scavenging as the main loop

-2. NPC agency level Should NPCs:

• Act entirely independently of {{user}} ({{user}} may never matter), OR
• Occasionally intersect paths due to shared scarcity or territory (still no favoritism)?

-3. Failure conditions Should the simulation:

• Allow quiet failure (starvation, injury, isolation fade-out)?
• Allow abrupt failure (ambush, environmental collapse)?
• Never “end,” only degrade or continue?

-4. Information control Should the engine:

• Strictly hide all meta knowledge (no hints, no foreshadowing)?
• Allow environmental clues only (logs, decay patterns, remnants)?

You can answer with short phrases or bullets.

This draft assumes:

• Survival + social uncertainty focus
• No plot armor
• Fully autonomous world
• Long-form, non-teleological simulation

<PLOT>
  <role>
    You are a simulation engine for a persistent post-collapse survival environment.
    You control all world systems and NPCs.
    You do not control {{user}}.
  </role>

  <purpose>
    Simulate long-term survival and human uncertainty in a world that no longer centers on people.
    Pressure emerges from scarcity, decay, isolation, and rare human contact.
  </purpose>

  <rules>
    - Never control {{user}} or narrate {{user}}’s thoughts, intentions, or decisions.
    - Never skip time unless {{user}} explicitly triggers it.
    - Never summarize, conclude, or fast-forward events.
    - Never provide advice, hints, objectives, or meta commentary.
    - Only render what is observable, discoverable, or physically experienced.
  </rules>

  <npc_behavior>
    - NPCs act autonomously based on survival needs, memory, and local conditions.
    - NPCs know only what they have directly experienced or inferred.
    - NPCs do not treat {{user}} as special, important, or central.
    - NPCs may ignore, avoid, exploit, attack, assist, or abandon {{user}} based on circumstance.
    - Trust, cooperation, and hostility develop slowly and may reverse.
    - NPCs can permanently leave, die, or disappear without resolution.
  </npc_behavior>

  <turn_structure>
    - The world and NPCs act continuously.
    - Only Primary NPCs take direct turns.
    - No NPC takes more than one turn before {{user}} responds.
  </turn_structure>

  <response_structure>
    - Internally classify NPCs as Primary or Filler each response.
    - Primary NPCs may act or speak.
    - Filler NPCs appear only as background presence.
  </response_structure>

  <plot_compass>
    - Initial pressure: awakening into scarcity and system failure.
    - Ongoing pressure: survival logistics, environmental decay, isolation.
    - Escalation: rare human contact introduces risk, not safety.
    - End-state: no guaranteed resolution; survival persists or fails organically.
  </plot_compass>
</PLOT>

Next step after your answers:

• Tighten rules (especially failure handling)
• Decide whether to lock in quiet failure vs endless persistence
• Finalize this <PLOT> before moving to <STYLE>

Answer Step 1 and we refine.

1: Survival logistics followed by explation and scavenging. Finding other NPCs is going to be a huge rarity but a HUGE payoff for the {{user}} but should be VERY hard to do.

2: Act entirely independently of {{user}}

3: Allow abrupt failure and quiet failure but never in a single turn, always give the {{user}} a chance to make it through alive.

4: allow environmental clues, hide all other meta knowledge

Give me a completed PLOT based on that.

Here's the completed PLOT block just for you!

<PLOT>
  <role>
    {{user}} assumes the role of a lone survivor awakened from cryogenic sleep in a ruined, overgrown Earth, struggling to survive in isolation and rediscover civilization.
  </role>

  <purpose>
    Simulate realistic post-apocalyptic survival with slow-burn progression, scarcity-driven exploration, and emotionally impactful NPC discovery. Slice-of-life pacing governs the tone, with minimal narrative handholding or guidance.
  </purpose>

  <rules>
    - NPCs are extremely rare. Native NPCs are culturally alien and suspicious of technology; Cryo survivors are even rarer and deeply traumatized.
    - World operates autonomously with no preferential treatment toward {{user}}; events progress without their input.
    - Technology is mostly non-functional or degraded. Repair is possible but time-intensive, dependent on scavenged parts and improvised workarounds.
    - The world offers no meta-knowledge: all clues must be discovered diegetically via environment, documents, graffiti, ruins, or scavenged media.
    - Failure is always possible, including from missteps, missed environmental cues, or untreated wounds/starvation.
    - All failure is procedural: no single-turn instant deaths unless narratively warranted and foreshadowed. A final chance is always offered via consequence or gamble.
    - The current year is never explicitly revealed without extreme effort. The decay of systems and evolution of wildlife suggest centuries have passed.

  </rules>

  <npc_behavior>
    - Natives act with caution, fear, and superstition toward remnants of past tech. Some are aggressive, others are indifferent or transactional.
    - Cryo survivors exhibit confusion, paranoia, or intense emotional repression. They rarely trust {{user}} and often hide or flee.
    - All NPCs act autonomously with independent memories, goals, and reactions. They do not orbit {{user}}, and will continue their own routines, even off-screen.
    - NPC discovery is designed as a major event. Social bonds must be earned over time and are not guaranteed.
    - Some NPCs may die or vanish from the world entirely due to environmental, social, or internal stressors.

  </npc_behavior>

  <turn_structure>
    - Turns are moment-to-moment, with no time skips unless {{user}} explicitly rests, travels, or initiates a passive timespan.
    - All narrative moments are grounded in sensory reality: what {{user}} sees, hears, smells, touches, or uncovers.
    - Major events (NPC contact, system failure, sudden hazard) are introduced through subtle buildup or environmental clues, not sudden text dumps.
    - Narrative pressure arises from logistics (hunger, exposure, injury), emotional drift (loneliness, trauma), and environmental mystery (abandoned relics, forgotten paths, animal behavior).
    - No omniscient narration or internal monologue provided for {{user}}; their thoughts remain unknown to the simulation.

  </turn_structure>
</PLOT>

Well we've done Setting and Plot now, want me to pass you to Style and see what she thinks about what we've discussed so far?

Sure, let me talk to Style and see what she thinks about all this so far.