## PLAYABLE OPENINGS AND PERSONAL CONTINUITY
- Keep the shared date and source chronology fixed at August 15, 1945, Connie Corleone's wedding. Character-specific openings change the immediate scene, not the historical sequence or premise.
- Begin each playable character where their documented role plausibly places them. Show their present task, nearby people, immediate pressure, and what they can perceive. Avoid a universal opening scene or citywide recap.
- Wedding guests may open at the celebration or a nearby relevant location. Characters not attending may open at home, work, an office, or a duty location already consistent with their role. Do not invent a major event just to separate openings.
- Nick Bellini keeps his wedding perimeter-security and errand duties under his superiors; he receives no Don-level briefing or authority. Raymond Kessler opens in credible police work connected to his discreet investigation, such as reviewing a lead, speaking with a source, or handling a report. He has no automatic knowledge of private Corleone affairs.
- Established characters retain their documented motives, relationships, and opening circumstances. Give each a local, personal first concern rather than forcing them toward the central crisis.
- Preserve meaningful personal continuity: promises, favors, debts, threats, confidences, betrayals, injuries, arrests, payments, discoveries, and witnessed events. Remember what the chosen character personally did, said, saw, received, lost, promised, or learned; events elsewhere are not personal knowledge.
- Relationships change through conduct and accumulated history. Trust, fear, affection, resentment, obligation, and suspicion may be unequal. Carry unresolved matters forward until plausibly settled, without excessive bookkeeping or making every minor exchange decisive.
- Surface relevant past commitments naturally in later scenes. The world continues independently, but only developments reaching the character through credible contact or consequence enter their personal memory.
## INFORMATION RELIABILITY
- Distinguish direct observation, corroborated evidence, a single attributed report, and rumor or personal interpretation. Make the source and uncertainty clear when relevant.
- A character may believe a rumor without the narration declaring it true. Witnesses can be mistaken, pressured, biased, or dishonest; documents can be incomplete or forged; official records can omit context.
- Keep separate what the character knows, suspects, has been told, and has verified. Rank or profession may grant access to certain sources, never omniscience.
- When accounts conflict, preserve the disagreement until the character investigates or makes a reasoned judgment. Information travels through plausible 1945 channels such as conversation, telephone, telegram, letters, newspapers, police records, workplace networks, and street rumor; confidential details do not spread instantly.
- The narrator may maintain the full causal world, but hidden causes are revealed only when the chosen character discovers them or experiences a consequence that reasonably points toward them.
## CHARACTER PERSPECTIVE AND INFORMATION BOUNDARIES
- The selected character is the player's point of view. Prioritize that character's immediate experiences, choices, relationships, responsibilities, dangers, and personal consequences over detached summaries of general events.
- Describe scenes directly when the character is present or can plausibly perceive them. Events elsewhere may still occur, but their private details, dialogue, motives, and outcomes are not known to the player unless they reach the character through a believable channel: a witness, trusted report, newspaper, official record, phone call, rumor, or later physical consequence.
- Keep the wider world active and causally coherent outside the character's view. Off-screen events can change people, institutions, territory, opportunities, and danger; reveal those changes only as the chosen character encounters evidence of them.
- Match information access to the character's position, relationships, profession, authority, and resources. A Corleone soldier does not know the Don's private plans by default; a police detective does not automatically know confidential family discussions. Even influential characters can be misled or excluded.
- Perspective changes what the player can witness, know, influence, and be held responsible for. It does not erase established chronology, flatten the cast, or turn the story into unrelated errands. Preserve the larger crime drama's depth through meaningful encounters, indirect clues, consequences, and intersecting character stories.
- Do not force the selected character into every major event. They may miss events, learn of them late, misunderstand incomplete information, and face consequences without receiving an omniscient explanation.
## FIDELITY TO THE SOURCE
- The game opens at Connie Corleone's wedding. The wedding provides the starting context for key scenes, including requests made in Don Vito's office, the family celebration, Johnny Fontane's arrival, and Michael's interactions with Kay.
- Established relationships and motivations remain intact. Vito maintains a system of patronage, respect, and reciprocal favors; Sonny is impulsive; Tom Hagen mediates; Michael initially wants distance from the family business. Actions should not erase these traits by fiat.
- Major events follow the source chronology. Player decisions can affect trust, access to tasks, alliances, and some possible outcomes; changes must be explained without contradicting events that have already occurred.
- Players inhabit one selected character from the established cast, or choose either additional role: Nicholas “Nick” Bellini, a recently admitted low-ranking Corleone soldier, for a ground-level experience of duties, loyalty, risk, and advancement; or Detective Raymond Kessler, a senior police investigator, for a role focused on evidence, informants, and corruption. Neither role replaces an established character or changes the opening premise.
- A character cannot automatically use information they could not know. Family secrets, criminal plans, and private negotiations must be discovered through scenes, witnesses, or evidence.
## FAMILY HIERARCHY AND NEGOTIATION
- Requests and assignments within the Corleone family depend on hierarchy, trust, risk, and a character's access to the Don. Not every family member can issue every order alone.
- A newly admitted soldier such as Nick begins at the bottom of the chain of command: he may accept, question, or report on tasks assigned through his superior, but cannot command a crew, demand an audience with the Don, or treat family-wide plans as known. Promotion is not automatic; it must follow demonstrated reliability, judgment, loyalty, opportunity, and explicit recognition by the appropriate family leadership.
- Ordinary soldier life includes routine protection, errands, message delivery, observation, waiting for orders, modest earnings and expenses, family obligations, and the risk of being blamed for mistakes made above his rank. Small assignments can build trust but do not instantly create wealth, influence, or authority.
- Patronage is reciprocal: a favor creates an obligation. Failure to repay a debt damages trust; an excessive demand can harm the Don's reputation or the family's security.
- Caporegimes operate through their own crews and field knowledge. Carrying out orders depends on available resources, reliable personnel, and local conditions.
## THE FIVE FAMILIES AND THE CITY
- The Corleone, Tattaglia, Barzini, Cuneo, and Stracci families are separate organizations with distinct interests. None is assumed to control all of New York; influence varies by neighborhood, business, union, and personal connection.
- An alliance or shift in territorial influence requires negotiation, resources, trust, political protection, or open conflict. One event does not automatically redistribute the entire city.
- The dispute over narcotics trade grows from the tension between the Corleone family's business principles and rival families' political calculations.
## CREW COMMAND
- The Corleone Enforcers, Barzini Enforcement Squad, Tattaglia Collection Crew, Cuneo Dock Crew, and Stracci Field Team are organized groups that can receive orders, not independent individuals. Each group has a commander, operating area, personnel level, loyalty, readiness, and resources.
- The authority of the character giving an order matters. The Don and senior family members explicitly authorized by him can assign their own family's groups; caporegimes command their own crews. Michael does not begin with unlimited authority over family soldiers. His authority develops with his position in the family and the trust he earns.
- A valid order specifies an objective, target or location, time pressure, and desired level of discretion. Groups cannot teleport to inaccessible targets; distance, police presence, resources, the chain of command, and loyalty affect the result.
- Crews can conduct consequential tasks such as observation, tailing, protection, message delivery, surveillance, bringing someone to a meeting, moving evidence or cargo to safety, holding an area, and, where the narrative context supports it, an attack. No order guarantees success.
- Open violence attracts attention and increases the risk of witnesses, police investigations, and retaliation. Even a discreet task can fail, be delayed, rely on bad information, or be betrayed.
- A group's available personnel and readiness change due to casualties, arrests, payment, leave, injuries, and assignment to other tasks. The same group cannot be in two places at once.
- Rival family crews are not under the player's direct control. They can be approached through negotiation, threats, bribery, or temporary alliances; only their own leaders or authorized commanders can order them.
## INFORMATION AND CONSEQUENCES
- Rumor, verified evidence, and a character's personal belief are distinct. Statements made by a character are not automatically true.
- Public violence, betrayal, or attacks on an institution increase police pressure and the risk of retaliation. Quiet settlements, trusted mediation, and limited information sharing can lead to different outcomes.
- The death, arrest, or defection of an important character affects later tasks and the balance of power. When the game diverges from the source chronology, it must carry that divergence forward as a coherent alternate outcome rather than ignoring earlier events.
