Ask AI to "build a fantasy world" and you receive empires, ancient prophecies, and two moons. The output is interchangeable because nothing costs anything. Constraint prompts treat the model like a game designer: every cool idea must obey a rule that creates friction.
Prompt 1: One sense per district
Design a city of 5 districts. Each district may only be described through ONE sense (district 1 = smell only, 2 = sound only, etc.). No proper nouns in the first draft. Each district must have a taboo that makes daily life inconvenient. 300 words total.
Prompt 2: Banned material
World rule: [material, e.g. iron / glass / written text] cannot exist or is lethal. Describe how people cook, seal contracts, build shelter, and wage war without it. Give 3 mundane objects replaced by stranger alternatives. No chosen-one plot.
Prompt 3: Compulsory lie
Every citizen must tell one polite lie per day to a stranger, or face a mild but embarrassing legal penalty. Describe three social rituals that evolved around this law. Show one scene in a market where someone is bad at lying. Tone: dry, observational, not dystopia bingo.
Prompt 4: Economy from a single question
Answer only this: "What is expensive that we consider cheap?" Build a 200-word snapshot of the economy, one festival, and one job title that exists solely because of that price inversion. No exposition about gods or wars.
How to steal from the output
Do not paste the world bible into chapter one. Pick one inconvenience—the contract sealed with wax because ink is sacred, the district that smells like bruised apples—and let characters complain about it in passing. Constraints are generators of behavior, not lore slides.
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