Projects, Continuities, Stories, Campaigns, and Publications

The system should distinguish between a reusable project, a mutable continuity, a running campaign, a narrative story, and a published output.

Project

A project is the root lore container.

It contains reusable setting material: characters, factions, locations, entities, relationships, facts, secrets, events, and plot threads.

Example:

Project: The Silver Road

Continuity

A continuity is a mutable branch or version of a project.

A single project may have multiple continuities.

Example:

Project: The Silver Road
Continuity A: Main canon
Continuity B: Tuesday group
Continuity C: Online group

Each continuity can have its own state:

Main canon:
  mayor is alive
  guild hall stands
  secret tunnel undiscovered

Tuesday group:
  mayor is alive
  players joined the guild
  secret tunnel discovered

Online group:
  mayor is dead
  players burned the guild hall
  secret tunnel undiscovered

Campaign

A campaign is an interactive play workflow attached to a continuity, or a specialized kind of continuity if the product keeps the model simpler.

Campaigns add participants, sessions, player visibility, and table-specific outcomes.

Story

A story is a narrative presentation over a continuity.

Examples:

a novel draft
an adventure arc
a campaign journal
a serialized fiction outline

Publication

A publication is a curated view of project or story material.

Examples:

public setting guide
player handout
adventure module
novel outline
wiki export

Publications should not automatically reveal all private project data.

Recommended Rule

Treat the project as the source material. Treat continuities as branches of state and history. Treat stories, campaigns, and publications as presentations or workflows over that material.

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