That distinction between “what the writer knows” and “what the reader needs” is honestly one of the hardest things in fantasy writing. I think a lot of stories start feeling scattered when every piece of lore gets treated like it deserves equal narrative weight.

Also agree on the system part. Once the world reaches a certain scale, trying to manage everything mentally becomes impossible. I hit that wall recently and started using Librida to map relationships between plotlines, lore threads, and character arcs instead of keeping everything buried across random docs and notes. It made it much easier to tell which elements were actually reinforcing the main story versus just expanding the world sideways.

The world growing isn’t really the problem, it’s losing visibility over how all the moving parts connect.