dsh-egm-campaign

Tabletop RPG campaign prep for DeepSeek Harness, built on dsh-egm, the Elephant-Goldfish Model (EGM) for DeepSeek Harness.

A game master (GM) preps with a lot of private context, like EGM's Elephant. Prep usually fails because it only works in its author's head. This package adds Goldfish reviewers that see only the page: a substitute GM, the players, a continuity reader, a critic who knows the table, and a difficulty check.

The prep format follows the eight steps of Mike Shea's Lazy Dungeon Master method.

Status: 0.1.0, unreleased and untested on a live Harness. The pilot (below) decides whether the reviewers earn their place.

When to use it

Not the full cycle every session. The arc changes rarely; each session gets ordinary prep plus a quick check.

When	Run	Effort
Campaign start, or a big turn	/campaign-brainstorm, /campaign-draft, then /campaign-review <file> arc	An evening
Before each session	/campaign-draft session <n>, then /campaign-review <file> session <n>	Normal prep plus a few minutes
After each session	/campaign-brainstorm after session <n>	A few minutes
When stuck	/campaign-brainstorm <one session's pitch>	Occasional

Skills

• /campaign-brainstorm: clarifying questions over the eight steps, then seven lenses in parallel, then prep_brief.md. With after session <n>, a debrief whose questions come from that session's planned secrets, hooks, and scenes; it updates the secrets table and open threads.
• /campaign-draft: a campaign document built section by section with an approval gate after each: premise and table record, arc, contingencies, and session prep. With session <n>, it adds one session.
• /campaign-review: starts the reviewers for the arc or a session <n> pass, writes campaign_review_report.md, and walks the GM through Blockers and Majors.

Reviewers

Reviewer	Stands in for	Prep steps	Pass
Substitute GM	A GM with no briefing	2, 5–7	Session
Player's eye	The players	3, 4	Session
Difficulty	A GM who has run this party before	3, 7, 8	Session
Continuity	A reader of the whole arc	4, 6	Arc
Table critic	A GM who knows the group	1, 2, 8	Arc

All five use the run-readiness standard. "Enough" prep is the eight-step minimum: a missing essential is Major, and over-prep is a Nit unless it buries an essential.

Install

Install dsh-egm first; this package uses its egm_reviewer tool and read-only reviewer preset. Then add this package to the same profile:

dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-egm
dsh plugin --profile web add /path/to/dsh-egm-campaign

For headless and sdk profiles, follow dsh-egm's host prerequisites.

Layout

Path	Contents
host/	The skills host plugin and bundle patch
skills/	The three skills and their templates
reviewers/	The five review personas
lenses/	The seven brainstorm lenses
standards/	The run-readiness standard

Other creative domains, such as fiction writing, could follow the same shape: reviewers, lenses, a draft template, and a standard.

Pilot

Before relying on it: write a short campaign (an arc and two sessions) with eight planted flaws, at least one per reviewer, plus a few held-out flaws from another GM who has not read the personas. Run the arc and session passes once with no fixes, and compare against one plain session given the same checklists, scored blind. Keep a reviewer only if it finds something the plain session misses.

Credits

• dsh-egm by dryw: the DeepSeek Harness port this package runs on. The skills host is adapted from its skills-host.js.
• Elephant-Goldfish Model, Copyright Google LLC: the Elephant and Goldfish method. The persona structure and the brainstorm, draft, and review workflows are adapted from its personas and skills.
• Lazy Dungeon Master by Mike Shea (Sly Flourish): the eight prep steps, described here in original words.

NOTICE lists every derived file and what changed. This package is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google, dryw, DeepSeek, or Sly Flourish, and is not an officially supported Google product.

License

Apache 2.0. See LICENSE and NOTICE.