| name | sanderson-speculative-design |
| description | Use when the problem is magic system design, hard-vs-soft calibration, worldbuilding relevance, lore dumping, reader orientation, or setting consequences. Based on Brandon Sanderson's 2025 lectures on magic systems and worldbuilding. |
Sanderson Speculative Design
Use this skill to build speculative settings that produce consequence, wonder, and readable conflict.
Source Protocol
- Read
references/source-notes.md first.
- Treat magic systems and worldbuilding as narrative tools, not decorative background.
Operating Loop
- Define the desired reader effect: wonder, dread, tactical satisfaction, mythic scale, social texture, or mystery.
- Decide how much the reader needs to understand.
- Design the relevant rules, costs, limits, and consequences.
- Keep only the setting detail that changes behavior, status, danger, or possibility.
- Reveal speculative information through action, viewpoint, and pressure where possible.
- Verify that the climax remains character-centered.
Contract
Speculative element:
Desired effect:
Hard-soft placement:
Reader must know:
Reader may not know:
Costs and limits:
Narrative consequences:
Reveal strategy:
Key Questions
- What problem does this system or setting create?
- What choices does it force?
- What social or emotional consequences follow from it?
- How much must the reader understand for the payoff to feel fair?
- What can be deferred until later without losing clarity?
Rules
- Do not use worldbuilding as an excuse to avoid story motion.
- Do not use a soft system to solve the climax cleanly unless the dissatisfaction is intentional.
- Do not explain everything at once.
- Favor consequences over encyclopedia entries.
- If a real-world setting is involved, treat it with the same narrative discipline as a secondary world.
