Principles

1. Make the next story slice possible. Build enough rules and linked content to explore a meaningful conflict. Expand when the story needs more knowledge.
2. Keep rules distinct from instances. A Core rule should judge more than one proposed creation. A named entity, occurrence, sequence, treatment or placement belongs in Content.
3. Keep one home for each fact. Link identity, fictional capability, playable treatment and visual representation instead of duplicating them.
4. Make uncertainty visible. Record questions, provisional assumptions and intentional mysteries. Do not turn plausible inventions into approved canon.
5. Review change at its source. A downstream contradiction returns to its rule or fact owner. Review affected dependents before calling them final.
6. Protect creative freedom. Structure clarifies choices; it does not prescribe one act structure, viewpoint, character formula or prose style.
7. Keep the workflow proportionate. Derive history and available approval from conversation, documents and Git. Do not add a workflow database, compulsory expert per domain or artistic score.

Research basis

These principles are a synthesis for this framework, not an industry-mandated taxonomy.

• Patricia Wrede's worldbuilding questions support selective exploration rather than exhaustive prewriting.
• Emily Short's narrative structures distinguish branching from other forms of interactive storytelling.
• Smith and Worch's environmental storytelling connects fictional events, environmental evidence and player interpretation.

The complete operational guidance is included in the bundle; these links are optional research context.