Conventions and Voice

Every file you add inherits the project's conventions, whether you think about them or not. This chapter collects the habits that keep the workspace coherent as it grows.

Voice

Write like the world's own in-print rulebook, not like documentation about a product. Concrete over generic: name the faction, quote the ruling, show the roll. A sentence that would survive being printed in a book someone paid for belongs here. A sentence about the app — "this field is used for…", "click here to…" — does not.

The Player's Handbook chapters set the tone: block quotes, page references, worked examples. Match that density. When you describe a character or a place, write the way the setting would talk about it, not the way a database would.

One file, one job

A character who is also a faction, a location, and a quest is three files. Split by what the table needs to find: characters are found when someone acts, wargear when someone equips, locations when someone travels, factions when someone negotiates. If you can't say in one sentence what a file is for, it's two files.

Keep references stable

Reference fields — a character's inventory, a mission's location — resolve by slug. Renaming an item breaks every character who carries it; renaming a location breaks every map that points at it. The rule of thumb: rename the display name freely, keep the slug stable. If you must change a slug, fix every reference in the same pass.

Feed the sources, not the totals

Computed fields exist so derived values stay honest: carrying capacity follows strength, inventory weight follows wargear weights. Never hand-type a value the system can compute, and never fight the math by writing an "adjusted" number. If the computed total is wrong, the source is wrong — fix the source.

Know which lane a field is

• description — what the reader sees.
• atmosphere — what the reader feels.
• background — why this person fights.
• notes — the mechanical, the hooks, the table-specific.

Descriptions and atmospheres are public and sensory. Notes can be anything, but remember: compendium files are searchable. Secrets are the one exception — they belong in GM Instructions, not in public fields. If reading the file would spoil the reveal, it isn't a public-field fact.

Books are public; briefs are private

The Player's Handbook and Builder's Manual are read by players. GM Instructions are read by the GM during play. The line between them is the line between "how the world works" and "what the world is hiding." Never cross it in a handbook chapter.

When in doubt, match the example

The project ships with example files for every type: a full character, an archetype with its ascension package, a talent, two weapons, an armor, two equipment entries, a threat, a psychic power, a location, a game start, and a GM instruction. They are the house style. Before you write an entry, glance at the example of its type — density, field usage, tone — and match it. When your entries are indistinguishable from the examples in quality, the conventions have done their job.