Start Here: Build a Heartline World

Heartline is a system, not a setting. Prove a new World with a small playable social web before writing deep lore.

Minimum first build: create 1 Drama Frame, 3–5 important Characters, 3–6 Relationships, 1 Episode, and 1 Game Start. That is enough to test whether the premise produces choices.

Add Groups, Locations, and an Event when the opening situation needs institutions, places, or a public occasion. Add Secrets, Leverage, Scandals, Memories, and Props & Keepsakes only when they already have a job in play. A World does not need to use every Heartline file type.

Give every lead a Desire that can collide with another person or institution. Put at least two incompatible claims into the opening Episode. Make the Game Start place the chosen lead inside that pressure immediately rather than beginning with a lore briefing.

Run a short test before expanding the World. If a file never affects a choice, consequence, relationship, or callback, it probably does not need to exist yet. Build outward from what play proves recurring.