Core Principles

This system is built around pressure, agency, and persistent consequences. Content should create decisions rather than prescribe plots.

Keep state small and meaningful

Store facts that can change: current supplies, morale, security, project progress, NPC needs, trust, loyalty, and faction resources. Do not store decorative summaries that can be read from those facts. A settlement's identity belongs in its description and notes; its current condition belongs in measurable fields.

Make every resource a choice

Food and water are the foundation, but labor, medicine, tools, time, secrecy, and goodwill are resources too. A new entry should make clear what it consumes and what it enables. If a mechanic only adds bookkeeping without changing a decision, leave it out.

Build for movement

A location should have at least one reason to approach it, one reason to avoid it, and one thing that changes if the group ignores it. An NPC should want something now, fear something specific, and have a relationship that can change through play. A faction should have a goal, a limited resource base, and a response to success or failure.

Let the world continue

Events are prompts, not missions. Projects can fail. Factions act off-screen. Supplies spoil. Relationships cool. Use the current state to decide what happens next, and write the result back into the appropriate entry so the world remembers.