The Minimum Playable World

Do not build the whole world before play. Build enough to begin — then let relevance guide you.

Answer what matters now. Defer what does not.

Required for opening

• A starting area with its terrain, climate, and season.
• One or more starting locations where play actually happens.
• Starting characters with honest circumstances: money, possessions, relationships, household, employment where relevant.
• Enough nearby people and institutions for the opening to function: an employer, a household, a market, an authority.
• Basic economic truth: what work exists, roughly what things cost, how people are paid.
• Basic law and custom for foreseeable play: who decides, what is clearly wrong, what marriage and inheritance broadly require.
• A coherent starting date, season, and situation.

Recommended for depth

• Neighboring settlements and their character: prosperity, food, market, pressures.
• The governing realm: ruler, heir where established, stability, demands.
• Important organizations: guilds, houses, temples, councils.
• Local culture and religion in practice: festivals, taboos, hospitality, naming.
• Seasonal pressures: harvest timing, winter vulnerability, labor rhythms.
• One or two tensions already in motion: a debt, a dispute, a shortage, a rivalry.

Defer until relevant

• Distant settlements, minor officials, background relatives, full legal codes, detailed military structures, every shop and street, precise inventories, complete theologies.

An unanswered question is not a missing rule. It is room for the world to grow.

Good builder question

Before adding anything, ask: will play need this soon? If yes, establish it. If no, leave it undefined. The world may expand during play — that is the plan, not a failure.