From World to Table

Package provenance — this chapter ships with the Ontology & Structure Engine. Provenance tag: source-ontology-project. When loaded into a new world, grep the tag to find the engine's templates and instructions.

A built world is ready to be played. This chapter is the bridge from the knowledge base to the table — and back.

Opening the game

A Game Start is the lobby card plus the play configuration: the starting location, the playable characters, and the opening beats that set the first scene. You can keep several game starts for one world: different openings, different characters, different first scenes.

Private guidance for the Game Master — rulings, escalation, the secrets players aren't meant to read — lives in GM Instruction files, loaded during play.

Hand your players a handbook

The engine's manuals teach the engine. They are not the book your players will read. The last step of generation is the player-facing handbook for your game: the setting primer that tells players what this world expects, how to make a character in it, the rules that will actually be rolled, and the tone to bring.

Ask for it once world and game generation are done:

"generate the player-facing handbook for the game itself — setting primer, character creation, the rules we'll actually roll, and the tone."

The engine at the table

Play is recall. The GM asks "what do we actually know about the wyrm?": the engine returns the monster file and the rumor that made it legend — canon and hearsay kept apart. Quests track objectives and rewards; monsters carry stat blocks and behavior; spells and rules hold mechanics; media carry what the world says about itself.

After the session

Close the loop the same session: log what happened as events with their anchors, update the state files, update the character sheets to match how people were actually played. The world is then ready for the next session — and the memory grows more accurate with every one.